"The Sound of Music Live!" (4.6/13 in 18-49 and 18.470 million viewers overall) dominated the night with NBC's best 18-49 Thursday average, excluding sports, since the night of the "ER" finale (5.2, April 2, 2009).

In total viewers, this is NBC's best Thursday average excluding sports since May 13, 2004 ("Frasier" finale night, 22.597 million viewers).

· NBC won its fifth night in a row among ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox in 18-49 (12/1-5). It's the first time since June 2002 that NBC has won five nights in a row, excluding Olympics (since a six-night streak June 2-7, 2002; NBC's last in-season five-night streak was May 1-5, 2002).

· The top local market in metered market households came in Carrie Underwood's home state, with Oklahoma City giving the three-hour special a 20.7/28. NBC ranked #1 in primetime in all 56 metered markets.

· With an +84% advantage over 2nd place CBS in A18-49 and excluding sports, this is NBC's best Thursday night dominance opposite all original broadcast competition since 10/4/01 (+161% vs. 2nd place CBS).

· Sound of Music Live led Big Bang in the 8pm half-hour (17.560 million vs. 15.261 million), marking the first time a show has topped Big Bang in P2+ head-to-head in strict half-hour data since American Idol did it on 5/10/12 (13.711 million vs. 13.668 million).

Please note these other headline numbers just in from Nielsen today...

"Tonight" and "Late Night" deliver their biggest weeklong 18-49 ratings in Three Years

Driven by strong Thanksgiving night telecasts , when they were delayed by a primetime NFL overrun, "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1.5 in adults 18-49 on Thursday, 1.1 for the week) and "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" (1.0 on Thursday, 0. 7 for the week) delivered their best weekly averages since the week of Sept. 6-10, 2010.

Macy's Parade Delivers Biggest Audience in People Meter History

"Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" generated its biggest average audience in the 26-year history of Nielsen's current People Meter sample (dating back to 1987), averaging 25.173 million in "live plus same day" national results. That's a 12% gain versus last year's 22.420 million.