MUMBAI: Sporting and live events dominated when it came to wooing TV viewers in the US in 2012, as has been the case in recent years.

Super Bowl XLVI set new viewership heights by netting 111.3 million viewers, to edge out viewership for last year?s Super Bowl (111.0 million viewers).

Competitive reality programming continued to garner high viewership as well. ?American Idol?, ?Dancing with the Stars? and ?The Voice? all made way to the Top Ten list of regularly scheduled programmes.

For the second year in a row, only two scripted shows made to the same list. This year it was ?NCIS? and ?Vegas?.

Time-shifting played a larger role in American viewing habits in 2012, as evidenced by the significant lift in programme viewership, most notably with cable programming. Viewers time-shifted more of their viewing than in 2011, as each program on the list more than doubled its live viewership?last year, the highest gain was 90 per cent.

Cable shows comprised 90 per cent of this year?s list and all of the top time-shifted shows were scripted dramas.