'Brother,' football strong on Sunday

NBC won Sunday's primetime ratings race with its preseason NFL game between the Saints and Raiders, but CBS staple ''Big Brother'' held up nicely and ABC's ''20/20: The Sixth Sense'' improved in its second week. According to preliminary national estimates from Nielsen, the football contest between New Orleans and Oakland averaged a 2.9 rating/7 share in adults 18-49 and 8.4 million viewers overall on NBC's stations from 8 to 11 p.m., with these numbers subject to notable revision due to time zone differences across the country. Regardless, the Peacock was poised to stand as the No. 1 broadcast network on the night in 18-49, 25-54 and total viewers. At CBS, following ''60 Minutes'' (1.0/3 in 18-49, 7.9 million viewers overall), ''Big Brother'' averaged a strong 2.9/8 in 18-49 and 7.7 million viewers overall during the 8 o'clock hour , down a bit vs. last week's season high but enough to be competitive with football in the preliminaries. The Eye didn't do much the rest of the way, though, with encores of ''The Good Wife'' (0.7/2 in 18-49, 3.7 million viewers overall) and ''CSI: Miami'' (0.8/2 in 18-49, 4.4 million viewers overall). ABC had its strongest Sunday of the summer with regular programming, as repeats of ''America's Funniest Home Videos'' (1.4/5 in 18-49, 6.3 million viewers overall) and ''Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'' (1.3/3 in 18-49, 5.5 million viewers overall) were both up a couple of ticks week to week. And from 9 to 11 p.m., the limited-run news series ''20/20: The Sixth Sense'' also improved (1.6/4 in 18-49, 6.0 million viewers overall), giving the Alphabet its strongest showing in demos with regular Sunday 9-11 p.m. programming in three years. Fox was on the low side of its summer range with repeats of ''American Dad'' (0.8/3 in 18-49, 1.8 million viewers overall), ''Bob's Burgers'' (0.8/3 in 18-49, 1.8 million viewers overall), ''The Simpsons'' (1.1/3 in 18-49, 2.7 million viewers overall), ''The Cleveland Show'' (1.1/3 in 18-49, 2.6 million viewers overall) and ''Family Guy'' (1.5/4 in 18-49, 3.2 million viewers overall) followed by original sketch comedy show ''In the Flow with Affion Crockett'' (1.0/2 in 18-49, 2.2 million viewers overall). Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: NBC, 2.5/7; ABC, 1.5/4; CBS, 1.4/4; Univision, 1.2/3; Fox, 1.1/3. In total viewers: NBC, 7.3 million; ABC, 6.0 million; CBS, 5.9 million; Univision, 3.3 million; Fox, 2.4 million. Contact Rick Kissell at rick.kissell@variety.com

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