Sunday night is a TV night. Even on New Year's Eve.

The party-hearty holiday, which fell on a Sunday last weekend, didn't do much to tear viewers away from Sunday Night Football, Cold Case or the annual offering of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.

NBC's final regular-season telecast of Sunday Night Football, pitting the Green Bay Packers against the Chicago Bears in a game devoid of playoff drama, managed to score with 13.4 million (third place), according to the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings.

A repeat of Cold Case on CBS kept 8.8 million (15th place) from venturing out into the cold night.

On ABC, the hourlong, prime-time portion of New Year's Rockin' Eve (19th place, 8.3 million) drew its biggest audience since 2001. Notably, the franchise's most-watched installment of the 21st century came in 2000, when New Year's Eve fell on, yes, a Sunday. (That year saw 11.3 million tune in.)

Final numbers for the late-night portion of New Year's Rockin' Eve, during which the rockin' new year was officially welcomed, won't be in until Friday. But according to one estimate Wednesday, the ABC show, now cohosted by Ryan Seacrest, was down slightly from the previous year, while NBC's Carson Daly-hosted countdown was about even.

Considering Clark-Seacrest drew nearly triple the audience of Daly in 2005-06—20.1 million viewers compared to 7.3 million—the estimate suggests the ABC show should retain its New Year's Eve bragging rights.

Not every show, meanwhile, bore up well against Sunday's "Auld Lang Syne" competition. A CW presentation of a slightly used CBS magic special, Keith Barry: Extraordinary, conjured up only 1.1 million viewers (126th place), and finished dead last among all English-language broadcast network offerings.

Other ratings highlights for the TV week—and calendar year—ended Sunday:

• The O.C. didn't air—and still got canceled. Apparently, Fox took offense to the paltry 4.1 million viewers the show averaged during the seven times it did run this season.
• Daytime's The Megan Mullally Show did air—and got canceled. TVWeek.com says the plug was pulled after the syndicated talker, which debuted last September, pulled in the lowest ratings of its peer group.
• Cable's TBS amassed 17.2 million viewers for seven Christmas Day broadcasts of A Christmas Story. Fortunately, there were no reports of eyes being shot out.
• Is Howie Mandel the new Jimmy Stewart? A two-hour, Christmas night edition of Deal or No Deal (first place, 16.4 million) was the most-watched Christmas night program in six years, NBC said.
• ABC's Desperate Housewives, typically a poor performer in reruns, aired a rerun and got poor results (65th place, 4.8 million viewers).
• Unlike Desperate Housewives, CBS' CSI (second place, 14 million) is a strong rerunner.
• Like Desperate Housewives, ABC's Grey's Anatomy (24th place, 8 million) doesn't have much in the way of legs.
• Ten million people didn't see the edited-out Jessica Simpson on the CBS broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors (ninth place).
• In a battle of Thursday-night repeats, ABC's Men in Trees (44th place, 6.5 million) managed a rare win over NBC's E.R. (71st place, 4.4 million). A previously viewed Shark on CBS (11th place, 9.7 million) trumped them both.
• In a rerun-heavy holiday week, ABC's Big Day aired not one (77th place, 4 million), but two (81st place, 3.8 million) new episodes. Not that anyone noticed.
• A broadcast network outing for Bravo's Top Chef (108th place, 2.3 million) didn't do much for NBC, but it did a lot for the cable series, exposing it to nearly three times as many viewers.
• The Alamo Bowl (7.8 million) was ESPN's most-watched college football bowl game; the storied MPC Computers Bowl (2.2 million) was its least-watched game.

Blessed with plenty of rerun-sturdy shows like CSI, CBS emerged as the week's most-watched network, averaging 8.5 million viewers. Blessed with football and Mandel, NBC (7.7 million) took second, followed by Fox (6.8 million) and ABC (6.5 million).

Acting like American Idol was already back, Fox managed to tie NBC for the lead in the 18–49-year-old demographic. Lots of football and a little bit of House (12th place, 9.2 million) went a long way in securing a share of the victory.

Elsewhere, Barry, the illusionist, helped make the CW (2 million) disappear.

Here's a look at the 10 most-watched prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. Deal or No Deal (Mon.), NBC, 16.4 million viewers
2. CSI, CBS, 14 million viewers
3. Sunday Night Football, Fox, 13.4 million viewers
4. NCIS, CBS, 11.9 million viewers
5. 1 vs. 100, NBC, 11.8 million viewers
6. NFL Sunday Postgame, Fox, 11.1 million viewers
7. CSI: NY, CBS, 10.7 million viewers
8. Criminal Minds (Wed.), CBS, 10.2 million viewers
9. Kennedy Center Honors, CBS, 10 million viewers
10. Criminal Minds (Thurs.), CBS, 9.9 million viewers