NEW YORK (AP) — Television viewers flocked to the showdown between LSU and Alabama over the weekend, making it the top-rated regular-season college football game in eight years.

The Nielsen company said 16.6 million people watched the game late Saturday afternoon, as LSU held off the Tide’s late charge. At 7 p.m. Eastern, just before its conclusion, the audience topped 20 million people.

Similarly, the 6.7 million people who watched Minnesota beat Penn State earlier in the day was a winner for ABC. It was the network’s biggest audience for a noon college football game in three years. It was particularly appealing to Minnesota fans; the rating for the game was the highest in Minneapolis of any college game since at least 2000 when the market ratings became available, Nielsen said.

A different form of combat helped ABC’s “The View” this week. The shout fest that ensued when Donald Trump Jr. came on the show to promote his new book gave the show its biggest audience in six months when former Vice President Joe Biden appeared.

Behind the dominant force of “Sunday Night Football,” NBC won the week in prime-time, averaging 7.1 million viewers. Fox averaged 6.7 million, CBS had 5.8 million, ABC had 4.3 million, Telemundo had 1.27 million, ION Television had 1.25 million, Univision had 1.2 million, and the CW had 720,000.

ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 3.06 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.59 million, MSNBC had 1.89 million, Hallmark had 1.54 million, and History had 1.01 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 8.2 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.7 million viewers.

For the week of Nov. 4-11, the top 10 shows, their networks, and viewerships: NFL Football: Minnesota at Dallas, NBC, 22.99 million; “NFL Sunday Night Pre-Kick,” NBC, 16.72 million; “NFL Sunday Post-Game,” Fox, 15.71 million; NFL Football: Dallas at NY. Giants, ESPN, 14.72 million; NFL Football: LA Chargers at Oakland, Fox, 13.85 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 10.89 million; “Little Mermaid Live,” ABC, 9 million; “Football Night in America, Part 3,” NBC, 8.89 million; “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 8.84 million; “FBI,” CBS, 8.55 million.

The Walt Disney Co owns ABC and ESPN. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment, and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by Fox Corp. Comcast Corp owns NBC and Telemundo. ION Media Networks own ION Television.

Online:

http://www.nielsen.com