A Sunday night football clash between Dallas and Green Bay helped NBC win its seventh straight week in the television ratings, its longest streak since spring 2002.

The fall television season begins this week, ushered in with a thud: Sunday's Emmy telecast - always timed in mid-September to get viewers excited about a new season - was seen by 12.3 million viewers, its smallest audience ever.

Besides the football game, the Emmys had strong competition from "60 Minutes," which finished third in the weekly ratings with 14.6 million viewers tuning in to see Scott Pelley's interview with John McCain and Steve Kroft's interview with Barack Obama. ESPN on Sunday was also showing the final game from Yankee Stadium.

Fox's "House" got a jump in the competition with a season premiere seen last week by 14.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

For the week, NBC averaged 8.3 million viewers (5.3 rating, 9 share), CBS had 7.8 million (5.2, 9), Fox 7.1 million (4.4, 7), ABC 5.9 million (3.9, 7) and the CW three million (2.0, 3).

A ratings point represents 1,128,000 households, or one per cent of the estimated 112.8 million TV homes in the U.S. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Sept. 15-21, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: Sunday Night Football: Dallas at Green Bay, NBC, 22.23 million; "House," Fox, 14.77 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 14.59 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 14.02 million; "Fringe," Fox, 13.27 million; "Emmy Awards," ABC, 12.34 million; "America's Got Talent" (Wednesday), NBC, 12.24 million; "Football Night in America," NBC, 10.92 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 10.19 million; "America's Got Talent" (Thursday), NBC, 10.03 million.