With its penultimate week of college bowl games, ESPN had another easy win for cable primetime viewership, and adults 18-49 viewership.
You cannot stop SpongeBob, you can only hope to contain him, as order has been restored to Bikini Bottom, and Nickelodeon has returned to the top of the total day average viewership rankings.
Folks hoping for ESPN to move off the top spot don't have too much longer to wait, the BCS Championship Game will give them the easy win this week, but that may be it for them for awhile.
Special OWN Update!
In its's first full week of programming, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network was well behind Lifetime, but reasonably competitive already with Hallmark and Oxygen.
OWN replaced Discovery Health which averaged 51,000 W25-54 Total Day, and 84,000 W25-54 in Prime Time during 2010.
SELECTED NETWORKS Prime-time Women 25-54 (Live+SD) Week of January 3-9, 2011
| Network | (000s) |
| Lifetime | 502 |
| Hallmark | 153 |
| Oxygen | 151 |
| OWN | 129 |
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SELECTED NETWORKS Total Day Women 25-54 (Live+SD) Week of January 3-9, 2011
| Network | (000s) |
| LIFE | 260 |
| OXYG | 100 |
| HALL | 93 |
| OWN | 66 |
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For the week's top 25 individual cable programs click here.
Prime-time Average Viewers (Live+SD) Week of January 3-9, 2011
| Network | (000s) |
| ESPN | 4,386 |
| DSNY | 2,644 |
| TNT | 2,018 |
| FOXN | 1,954 |
| USA | 1,907 |
| AMC | 1,652 |
| A&E | 1,620 |
| FAM | 1,548 |
| LIFE | 1,498 |
| NAN | 1,479 |
| DISC | 1,477 |
| HIST | 1,475 |
| TBSC | 1,451 |
| FX | 1,433 |
| HGTV | 1,321 |
| MTV | 1,314 |
| TLC | 1,225 |
| ADSM | 1,187 |
| TRU | 1,137 |
| FOOD | 1,049 |
| SYFY | 1,043 |
| BRAV | 1,028 |
| SPK | 1,024 |
| TVLD | 931 |
| NKJR | 846 |
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Adults 18-49 Prime-time Average (Live+SD)
| Network | (000s) |
| ESPN | 1,964 |
| USA | 883 |
| TNT | 859 |
| MTV | 818 |
| TBSC | 816 |
| A&E | 801 |
| FX | 775 |
| DISC | 738 |
| LIFE | 681 |
| FAM | 679 |
| HIST | 650 |
| BRAV | 636 |
| TRU | 567 |
| ADSM | 565 |
| TLC | 540 |
| DSNY | 524 |
| CMDY | 507 |
| AMC | 502 |
| FOOD | 501 |
| SPK | 474 |
| HGTV | 468 |
| SYFY | 467 |
| NAN | 435 |
| EN | 409 |
| VH1 | 374 |
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Total Day Average Viewers (Live+SD)
| Network | (000s) |
| NICK | 2,209 |
| DSNY | 1,671 |
| ESPN | 1,572 |
| NAN | 1,562 |
| TNT | 1,349 |
| ADSM | 1,283 |
| FOXN | 1,178 |
| USA | 1,097 |
| TOON | 963 |
| A&E | 882 |
| AMC | 880 |
| TBSC | 853 |
| FX | 827 |
| FAM | 794 |
| HIST | 782 |
| DISC | 757 |
| LIFE | 745 |
| HGTV | 728 |
| TRU | 706 |
| MTV | 680 |
| FOOD | 677 |
| SPK | 612 |
| TVLD | 610 |
| NKJR | 563 |
| TLC | 531 |
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Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2010 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Cable Channel Abbreviations: NICK = Nickelodeon, NAN = Nick At Nite, TOON = Cartoon Network, ADSM = Adult Swim, TRU = truTV, LIFE = Lifetime, NKJR - Nick Jr., FAM = ABC Family, TVLD = TV Land, FOXN = Fox News, TBSC = TBS, DISC = Discovery
