NEW YORK — News programming doesn't have to be a ratings killer, as both CBS and ABC found out last week.
The venerable newsmagazine "60 Minutes" had 18.2 million viewers on Sunday. It had a trio of newsmaking interviews, with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on the assassination of his chief political rival, with baseball star Roger Clemens about steroid allegations and with a Boston mobster who said he's killed 20 people.
ABC News devoted its prime-time Saturday to back-to-back debates among Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, and they did better than ABC's usual Saturday programming. An estimated 9.4 million people watched the Democrats, about 2 million more than saw the Republicans.
CNN's replay of the debates Sunday brought in nearly 1 million for the Republicans and 1.4 million for the Democrats.
Hungry for new programming, viewers welcomed back NBC's "Law & Order" with a top 10 showing and 13.5 million viewers. A fresh episode of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" nearly topped 20 million viewers and the network's "Cashmere Mafia" premiered with 10.6 million viewers.
With two prime-time NFL playoff games, NBC easily beat its rivals, averaging 11.7 million viewers last week (7.1 rating, 12 share). CBS had 8.8 million (5.7, 9), Fox 8.7 million (5.3, 9) and ABC 8.4 million (5.3, 9), the CW 1.9 million.
For the week of Dec. 31-Jan. 6, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Playoffs: Jacksonville at Pittsburgh, NBC, 25.74 million; "NFL Playoff Pre-Kick," NBC, 23.87 million; "NFL Playoff Bridge," NBC, 23.48 million; "AFC Wild Card Postgame," CBS, 21.37 million; "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 19.78 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 18.25 million; "Law & Order," NBC, 13.46 million; "Deal or No Deal" (Thursday), NBC, 13.41 million; "CSI," CBS, 13.25 million; "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," ABC, 12.6 million.