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The 2012-2013 TV season is officially over as of midnight Wednesday, but don't look for any clear-cut answer among the final numbers as to what show is No. 1 on prime-time network television this year. CBS has been relentlessly claiming for months that its drama "NCIS" is the "#1 show" on television. Ads making the claim were still running Wednesday on trade publications' websites. But, according to Nielsen's final data, it looks like NBC's "Sunday Night Football" actually holds that title.

The 2012-2013 TV season is officially over as of midnight Wednesday, but don't look for any clear-cut answer among the final numbers as to what show is No. 1 on prime-time network television this year. CBS has been relentlessly claiming for months that its drama "NCIS" is the "#1 show" on television. Ads making the claim were still running Wednesday on trade publications' websites. But, according to Nielsen's final data, it looks like NBC's "Sunday Night Football" actually holds that title.

A touch below great Bill Kline The Morning Call NBC's family of networks earns a silver. The highlights: •Bubbly Dick Button on figure skating is an over-the-top treasure. He makes Dick Vitale seem like Debbie Downer. •Superimposing one skier's run over another's run is James Cameron-like genius. It's like watching a one-on-one race as they hurtle down the mountain. •Analysts impressively know their sport as well as Johnny Miller knows a golf swing.

The audience for NBC's coverage of the Preakness was up by as much as 24 percent during the afternoon, according to overnight Nielsen data provided by the network. The audience for the block of time that includes the race (5:45 p.m.-6:45 p.m. ET) was 9% up from 2012 with a 6.0 ratings versus 5.5 last year. Pre-race on NBC (5 p.m.-5:45 p.m. ET) was up 24% from 2012. That's a 3.6 ratings versus 2.9, and that's the largest audience since 2009. Not surpisingly, Baltimore was the top market with the telecast drawing a 15.7 rating and a 32 share.

LOS ANGELES - NBC was once the place to go for the woman-in-jeopardy or ripped-from-the-headlines genre of television movies, turning out a great number of them in the mid-'90s. The network has scaled back its movie production in recent years, opting for more prestigious projects like last year's Uprising when it does make original films. In the coming season, however, NBC will be a little more active in the original-movie game. Besides a Martha Stewart biopic, the Peacock has a half-dozen other projects in the works.

Here we go again with reports that NBC is looking to ditch Jay Leno. But this time, the ditching makes eminent sense. The Hollywood Reporter, citing unnamed sources, says NBC is putting the pieces in place to announce in May that Leno will be replaced in latenight  at the end of the 2013-2014 season by Jimmy Fallon. Why not? Leno, whose contract is up in 2014, is yesterday - and then some. He can still draw overall ratings, but you can't sell overall ratings the way you can sell the 18 to 49 or even 25-54 demographics.

NEW YORK (AP) -- NBC News and Nippon Television Networ agreed recently on a joint newsgathering venture, the third agreement this year between a U.S. network news division and a Japanese broadcaster.NBC News will have exclusive U.S. rights to all Japanese and international news material of NTV, NBC said.In return, NTV, with which NBC has had a working relationship for almost 40 years, will get exclusive rights to news material from the NBC News Channel, the 24-hour affiliates' news service that NBC will start on New Year's Day.The Japanese network will be the News Channel's first overseas affiliate, NBC said.

The audience for NBC's coverage of the Preakness was up by as much as 24 percent during the afternoon, according to overnight Nielsen data provided by the network. The audience for the block of time that includes the race (5:45 p.m.-6:45 p.m. ET) was 9% up from 2012 with a 6.0 ratings versus 5.5 last year. Pre-race on NBC (5 p.m.-5:45 p.m. ET) was up 24% from 2012. That's a 3.6 ratings versus 2.9, and that's the largest audience since 2009. Not surpisingly, Baltimore was the top market with the telecast drawing a 15.7 rating and a 32 share.

Does it feel as if NBC and its affiliates are getting a little greedy with its London coverage? As one who has defended the network's right to try and make as much money as it can off the games in hopes of offsetting the $1.18 billion it paid for rights, I have to admit even I have been getting a little queasy as to the way  that long-held patterns of network prime-time programming and affiliate news are being bent in pursuit of extra profits....

The easiest way to appraise NBC's bold acquisition of the U.S. television rights to the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, in 2000, and the Winter Games in Salt Lake City two years later is to view it as a protective move.In the short term, that's a pretty good assessment. The Peacock network has denied the second most valuable piece of sports programming -- after the NFL -- to the other networks into the next century.NBC president Robert C. Wright and sports chief Dick Ebersol denied the other day that Disney's acquisition last week of Capital Cities/ABC was the driving force behind its quick gambit.

Whether it's a Sunday night football game or the third Saturday in May at Pimlico, when NBC Sports floods the zone with members of its A-Team, the telecast is almost always a winner. That was again the case for the 138th Preakness Stakes -- thanks to airtight production, sure-handed direction and enough talent to cover three or four races. Sure, the NBC analysts were wrong in picking Kentucky Derby victor Orb (or, in the case of Michelle Beadle, Mylute) to win the Preakness. But did anyone on the planet have Oxbow?

As the television networks announced their fall schedules during this week's upfronts, news was pretty mixed for TV's LGBT characters. The good news first: Former "Will & Grace" star Sean Hayes is returning to NBC with a new sitcom bound to touch on gay issues. In "Sean Saves the World," the openly gay Hayes stars as a divorced gay dad raising a teenage daughter (Sami Isler) with the aid of his overbearing mother (Linda Lavin). Judging by the trailer , the show will tread on conventional multi-camera sitcom ground, especially with that pushy laugh track.

NBC Sunday announced that Seth Meyers will replace Jimmy Fallon who is moving up to the "Tonight Show" in 2014. It's a great choice. Meyers is a huge talent. NBC is going to be much better off once Jay Leno is gone. Here's the release: NBC names the versatile Emmy-winning writer/performer Seth Meyers as the new host of "Late Night" when Jimmy Fallon moves to "The Tonight Show" in 2014.  Lorne Michaels will executive produce “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and Michael Shoemaker will remain with the franchise as producer.  “Late Night with Seth Meyers” will originate from 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York.

You will find no tears here for the cancellation of Brian Williams' "Rock Center," which was first reported Friday by the New York Times. It was one of the sorriest excuses for a newsmagazine that I have seen in 30 years of reporting on network television. I wrote that as many times in as many ways as I could since its debut. From the hiring of the Chelsea Clinton as special correspondent, to the quotes from Williams comparing his team to the baseball Hall of Famers in Cooperstown, never has such journalistic bankruptcy been promoted with such self-important bluster.

Country singer Carrie Underwood will replace Faith Hill this fall in singing "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night," the anthem of NBC's top-rated weekly football telecast. The Sunday night broadcast, which averaged an audience of 21.8 million to become prime-time TV's highest rated show, is one the most skillfully and carefully packaged events in popular culture. "It's going to be the same song, same lyrics, but it's going to be with my flair," the Grammy-Award-winning singer said in a teleconference Tuesday.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy I have been complaining for more than a year about what a journalistically bankrupt decision NBC News made in hiring Chelsea Clinton as a special correspondent for Brian Williams "Rock Center. " I have reviewed each of her performances chronicling the downward arc of her learning curve. NBC's make-believe correspondent really did keep getting worse. But this is too embarrassing to even talk about.

NBC couldn't have cooked up a better ratings-grabber if it had brought in Jeff Gillooly to arrange yet another whack-a-mole with an Olympic figure skater. There's been some transcendent camera work this week, particularly with the downhill skiing and speed skating, along with dramatic competition, and lovely vistas on all three of the network's channels, which include CNBC and MSNBC on cable. But the network has clearly recognized that the murky stew of sport, pageant and commerce has been transformed into a glorious bouillabaisse with a single ingredient: scandal on ice. Ratings for the first six days of the Winter Olympics on NBC proper were nearly 20 percent above those registered by CBS during the Nagano games four years ago. More than 150 million Americans have tuned in since the opening ceremonies.

NEW YORK -- In a sharp reversal of its bitter campaign to thwart the expansion of the Fox television network, NBC agreed yesterday to cease its effort to deny Fox licenses for broadcast stations in seven cities.NBC said it had reached a potentially lucrative agreement with Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch to have two NBC-owned cable channels distributed over Murdoch's Star Television system, which delivers programs by satellite to homes in Asia.NBC decided to end its bitter dispute with Fox because, said NBC President Robert C. Wright, "we have accomplished everything we set out to do."

Jay Leno had to know the head honchos at NBC were gunning for him when he told the following joke last Monday night: "You know the whole legend of St. Patrick, right?" he asked the audience in his opening monologue. "St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland -- and then they came to the United States and became NBC executives. " The harsh humor directed at the guys who hold his fate in their hands is just the latest sign that the star and the bosses pretty much detest each other.

Here we go again with reports that NBC is looking to ditch Jay Leno. But this time, the ditching makes eminent sense. The Hollywood Reporter, citing unnamed sources, says NBC is putting the pieces in place to announce in May that Leno will be replaced in latenight  at the end of the 2013-2014 season by Jimmy Fallon. Why not? Leno, whose contract is up in 2014, is yesterday - and then some. He can still draw overall ratings, but you can't sell overall ratings the way you can sell the 18 to 49 or even 25-54 demographics.