According to preliminary numbers, the Milwaukee television rating for the Dallas Cowboys at Minnesota Vikings game Sunday delivered the highest rating for a non-Packers, non-Super Bowl National Football League playoff game in more than a decade.

Because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Monday, final numbers for the weekend NFL playoff games will not be available until Tuesday.

But the overnight rating for the Cowboys-Packers game on WITI-TV (Channel 6) was a 36.8, equal to 331,862 households in the Milwaukee market. According to the research director for Channel 6, Eric Steele, that is the highest rating in this market for any playoff game from the wild-card round through conference championships not involving the Packers since at least the 1996 season, the last one for which complete data is available.

To put that rating in context, consider this: Eight of the Packers games played in the 2009 regular season did not attract as large an audience on Milwaukee TV as Cowboys-Vikings.

The local audience for Cowboys-Vikings was nearly double the rating for Arizona at New Orleans, the other NFC semifinal shown on Channel 6 in mid-afternoon on Saturday. Cardinals-Saints had an 18.6 rating (167,735 households).

The New York Jets upset of the San Diego Chargers, an AFC semifinal played late Sunday afternoon and seen on WDJT-TV (Channel 58), had a rating of 23.1 (208,316 households). The Baltimore Ravens at Indianapolis Colts AFC semifinal, played in primetime and seen on Channel 58, had a 14.1 rating (127,154 households).

Nationally, the appeal of Favre's Vikings and the perennially popular Cowboys was considerable too, even though the game was a blowout.

The game had a national rating of 23.9, a 14% increase over last year's Philadelphia Eagles-New York Giants divisional game on Fox. That's the highest rating for any divisional game in the early window on any network since 1996, when an Eagles-Cowboys game had a 25.8 rating.

Cowboys-Vikings outdrew Jets-Chargers (23.1), the first time an early Sunday divisional game has out-rated the late game in 10 years. More people watch television late Sunday afternoon than watch early Sunday afternoon, so the late game has the advantage in drawing a bigger audience.

Many Packers fans in the Milwaukee market say they hate Brett Favre, but not enough to keep them from watching him play. In fact, they are watching Vikings games at record levels, just as they did New York Jets games in 2008.

The Vikings game against the Saints in the late window Sunday afternoon promises to deliver the highest rating for any NFC Championship not involving the Packers in this market since complete records have been kept.