TV RATINGS : Football Carries NBC to Easy Win

NBC, which rose from third place to a dominant first during the 1980s, closed out the decade in appropriate fashion, ratings from the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed Wednesday. The Peacock Network had eight shows in the Top 10 and scored its 11th consecutive weekly win over rivals ABC and CBS. Leading the way was a 61-minute runover into prime time of the Pittsburgh-Houston NFL playoff game last Sunday. For all of 1989, NBC said, its prime-time programs averaged a 14 rating, compared to 11.6 for ABC and 11.5 for CBS. The full list of weekly ratings is on Page 11.

* NBC even won in the battle of decade-ending news retrospectives. “The Eighties,” hosted by Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley, ranked 27th among the week’s 83 prime-time programs. ABC’s was 37th and CBS’ was 54th. Among the nightly newscasts, however, ABC’s “World News Tonight” continued its winning ways, attracting an average of 10.5 million homes, compared to 9.5 million for “NBC Nightly News” and 9.4 million for “CBS Evening News.”

Show Points Share 1.”NFL Playoff Game”(NBC) 23.8 44 2.”Monday Night Football”(ABC) 19.4 39 3.”The Cosby Show”(NBC) 19.3 32 4.”The Golden Girls”(NBC) 18.6 32 4.”Cheers”(NBC) 18.6 30 *”The Eighties”(NBC) 13.1 24