NEW YORK — CBS is back on top of the weekly Nielsen ratings, propelled by its drama-heavy lineup and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which gave life to a normally quiet Saturday night schedule.

“NCIS” was the week’s most-watched program, with the CBS drama seen by 15 million viewers. NBC’s “Little Big Shots” was second, with Steve Harvey’s family friendly show appearing to be a Sunday night hit.

Fox’s airing of “The Passion” from New Orleans on Palm Sunday was seen by 6.6 million viewers, more than any other show on the network last week aside from “American Idol.”

For the week, CBS averaged 7.7 million viewers in prime time. NBC had 6.2 million, ABC had 5.6 million, Fox had 3.9 million, Univision had 1.8 million, ION Television had 1.4 million, Telemundo had 1.2 million and the CW had 770,000.

Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.57 million viewers in prime time. TBS had 2.13 million, TNT had 1.97 million, HGTV had 1.74 million and AMC had 1.68 million.

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.4 million viewers. ABC’s “World News Tonight” was second with 8 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 7 million viewers.