Tuesday TV: The numbers don't lie

A few non-Wall Street numbers to help you make sense of your Tuesday:

20.7 million: Number of people who were tuned in, at peak, to Sunday night's Cowboys-Packers NFL game, according to Nielsen ratings. (The average for the night was 16.6 million)
12.2 million: Average number of people who tuned into Sunday's Emmy Awards. That was about a 6.6 percent drop from last year's viewership.

Other ratings tidbits: Last night's season premiere of "How I Met Your Mother," in which we learned Stella's answer to Ted's proposal but discovered that (gasp) there are flaws in the relationship, fared 25 percent better than last year's premiere. (And I love that Barney loves Robin, but still can't stop being Barney. Neil Patrick Harris is my hero.)

Meanwhile, the premiere of "Dancing With the Stars" -- which I am working my way through slowly, because 13 oversequinned ballroom-dance numbers are a little too much for me to handle in one evening, was down 9 percent from last fall's premiere. "Heroes," meanwhile, fell 25 percent from last year's premiere -- and rightfully so, alas, because it wasn't that good.