With three million less viewers than last year, FOX’ 59th annual Primetime Emmys telecast was outran by NBC’s Sunday Night Football, Nielsen Media Research reported Tuesday.

Football prevailed over last week’s ratings with the match between the New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers scoring an audience of 15.3 million while ESPN's season premiere of "Monday Night Football" (11.1 million) led on cable, and was up from 10.5 million last year; a late game scored 8.5 million.

Placing second in the top was the three-hour, 14-minute ceremony, broadcast by Fox from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Sunday night, drew an averaged 12.95 million viewers, the fewest since the 1990 ceremony, which drew 12.3 million (also on Fox), Reuters reported.

Sunday's Emmy show hosted by American Idol presenter Ryan Seacrest also posted record low ratings for viewers aged 18 to 49, the audience demographic most prized by advertisers in prime time.

"These are not stellar numbers," a Fox spokesman said. Viewership dropped 20% from the 2006 telecast, which aired on NBC. The program now rotates annually among the four major broadcasters.

CBS’ shows took over six of the 10 most watched prime-time programs on broadcast television for the 14th time in the 16 weeks of television's summer season, averaging 7.07 million viewers well ahead of Fox's 6.5 million and NBC's 6.2 million.

For the week of Sept. 10-16, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships:

"NBC Sunday Night Football," NBC, 15.32 million;
"Emmy Awards," Fox, 12.95 million;
"60 Minutes," CBS, 11.54 million;
"Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 11.09 million;
"Two and a Half Men," CBS, 9.95 million;
"Without a Trace," CBS, 9.47 million;
"Big Brother" (Thursday), CBS, 8.89 million;
"CSI: NY," CBS, 8.87 million;
"Football Night in America," NBC, 8.59 million;
"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 8.42 million.