NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

‘X-Files’ reaches more than 16M on return

NEW YORK

Mulder and Scully received a big assist from the NFL in attracting more than 16 million television viewers to the premiere of their return in Fox’s “The X-Files.”

Fox’s iconic series starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson is back for a limited run, and Fox schedulers smiled on them by booking the show directly after the NFC championship game between Arizona and Carolina. That game was seen by 45.7 million people Sunday, the Nielsen company said.

While more people watched “NCIS” last week, “The X-Files” had more than twice as many viewers as any other scripted series among viewers age 18-to-49, Nielsen said. That’s the audience Fox cares the most about.

CBS’ coverage of the AFC championship between New England and Denver wasn’t in prime time, but it was seen by an average of 53.3 million viewers Sunday on CBS. That made it the top-rated AFC championship game in 30 years, Nielsen said.

The NFC championship helped Fox to an easy ratings win, with the network averaging 13.2 million viewers in prime time. CBS had 8.7 million, NBC had 4.9 million, ABC had 4 million, Univision had 2.1 million, the CW had 2 million, Telemundo had 1.5 million and ION Television had 1.4 million.

As expected, storm took a bite out of Broadway profits

NEW YORK

The winter storm that barreled into New York over the weekend made a mess of Broadway box-office receipts, with most shows reduced to six performances instead of eight when Saturday went dark.

The Broadway League said Tuesday that the grosses for the week ending Sunday were $15,977,958, far lower than last week’s haul of $26,239,268. It was a 1.3 percent drop and every show lost money.

Attendance also dropped to 174,717 last week from 257,867 the previous week.

Associated Press