By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --The NFL wild card games and the NCAA football championship gathered millions of people in front of their television sets on a cold winter weekend.
An average of 30.5 million people watched the NFL's wild card games on television and digitally over the weekend, which the league said was up 21% over the same games in 2021.
Meanwhile, Georgia's victory over Alabama for the NCAA football championship last week reached 22.3 million viewers, the Nielsen company said. That allowed the NCAA to rebound from the lackluster ratings of the New Year's Eve semifinals, which featured two non-competitive games.
Boosted by their wild card games, CBS averaged 10 million viewers and NBC had 6.8 million in primetime last week. ABC averaged 2.7 million, Fox had 1.7 million, Univision had 1.6 million, Ion Television had 1 million and Telemundo had 900,000.
ESPN averaged 3.69 million viewers in prime time, Fox News Channel had 2.24 million, MSNBC had 1.2 million, HGTV had 1.08 million and Hallmark had 978,000.
ABC's "World News Tonight" won the evening news race, averaging 9 million viewers. NBC's "Nightly News" had 8.1 million and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.8 million.
For the week of Jan. 10-16, the 20 most popular programs in primetime, their viewerships and networks:
NFL Wild Card: Pittsburgh at Kansas City, NBC, 28.94 million.
2. NFL Wild Card: New England at Buffalo, CBS, 26.37.
3. "Wild Card Post Game" (Sunday), CBS, 25.5 million.
4. NCAA Football Championship: Georgia vs. Alabama, ESPN, 22.26 million.
5. "Wild Card Pre Game" (Sunday), NBC, 19.64 million.
6. "NCAA Championship Post Game," ESPN, 18.37 million.
7. "NCAA Championship Pre Game," ESPN, 13.78 million.
8. "60 Minutes," CBS, 11.29 million.
9. "FBI," CBS, 8.45 million.
10. "Young Sheldon," CBS, 7.7 million.
11. "Chicago Fire," NBC, 7.41 million.
12. "Chicago Med," NBC, 7.33 million.
13. "Ghosts," CBS, 6.48 million.
14. "Blue Bloods," CBS, 6.44 million.
15. "FBI: International," CBS, 6.29 million.
16. "Chicago PD," NBC, 5.81 million.
17. "Magnum, P.I., CBS, 5.77 million.
18. "FBI: Most Wanted," CBS, 5.56 million.
19. "United States of Al," CBS, 5.48 million.
20. "911: Lone Star," Fox, 5.03 million.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More