nbc 's 288 consecutive week winning run had stetched back to september 2009 and the drop from the top spot comes two months after anchor brian williams received a six-month suspension for misleading viewers about his coverage of the iraq war in 2003 .
in the wake of williams ' suspension , the switch also follows a change in how the numbers are crunched which now prevents nbc from including repeat numbers of its newscast from overnight replays .