In an otherwise quiet week of television, Howie Mandel channeled his inner Regis Philbin to help make NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” a winner.

NBC ran five hourlong episodes of the new game show last week and viewers were clearly intrigued. The shows made up one-third of Nielsen Media Research’s top 15 prime-time programs for the week.

The scheduling mirrored ABC’s approach at the beginning of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” trying to build momentum at a time when there was little else going on in TV.

NBC has ordered additional episodes of “Deal or No Deal” that likely will air in March.

CBS won the week’s ratings race – as it has every week this TV season – with an average of 10 million viewers in prime time (6.5 rating, 12 share).

NBC averaged 7.7 million viewers (5.0, 9), ABC 7.3 million (4.8, 9), Fox 6.8 million (4.0, 7), UPN 3 million (1.9, 3) and the WB 2 million (1.4, 2).