Ratings Five-Spot, WE 12/12/10 - The Sing-Off, American Country Awards, Eureka/Warehouse 13/Leverage, Sunday Night Football, Dexter

Here's your Ratings Five-Spot for the week ending December 12, 2010:

The Sing-Off - In December 2009, the NBC holiday reality series was in "did nicely for December filler; let's bring it back next December" territory. This year, the show has taken the next step into "stronger than almost everything on our schedule" territory, including a 3.3 demo on Monday of the current week. That's gonna make it tough for NBC to resist upgrading it from the "filler" role, but most of the rest of the TV year is littered with singing and dancing competitions. We'll see just how lightly NBC treads.

American Country Awards - Guess I should note that I didn't watch this and don't know anything about it beyond "country music awards show where the fans vote," but it seemed to me like the Fox "kudocast" was kinda made in a test tube, like they said, "Country music awards shows do well!  We should cook up one!" Apparently it ain't that simple. The inaugural ACAs (is that an acronym that is used?) pulled a weak 6 million viewers and a 1.5 demo. I have no idea if we'll ever see it again.

Cable Christmas One-Offs - The week saw at least three relatively non-serialized cable programs come back from a long hiatus to air Christmas specials in Syfy's Eureka and Warehouse 13 and TNT's Leverage. They were all below average, with Eureka at a 0.6 A18-49 leading into Warehouse 13 at a 0.7, and Leverage (which has hovered between 0.8 and 1.0 for almost all of its run) posting a well below average 0.5. Tough to rally the fanbases back into action for just one or two weeks, I guess.

Sunday Night Football - They've been out of playoff contention for weeks now, but the ability of the Dallas Cowboys to still draw TV ratings is as potent as ever. Last week's Sunday Night Football between the Cowboys and Eagles was the most watched Sunday Night Football game ever, posting 25.7 million viewers and a (non-record) 9.5 demo. It didn't hurt that they were taking on Michael Vick, who has himself become must-see TV in the NFL this season. A perfect storm of ratings-grabbers.

Dexter - A couple weeks ago, when Dexter got its season 6 renewal stripes, it appeared series highs were on the way, as the 1.1 demo was the show's highest for a third-to-last episode. But in the two subsequent weeks, it's stayed on that 1.1 demo, including no spike for the season finale, and that 1.1 finale trails last season's finale by a couple ticks. It's still a monster compared to most of Showtime's originals, but it certainly looked like it might have done better.

More Five-Spots can be found in the Index.