updated 2:33 p.m. ET Jan. 4, 2009

NEW YORK - The San Diego Chargers' 23-17 overtime victory over the Indianapolis Colts tied the mark for the best overnight rating for a Saturday wild-card game since 1999.

The game earned an 18.3 overnight rating and a 30 share on NBC, the network said Sunday. That equaled the 2003 Atlanta-Green Bay game for the highest mark for a Saturday wild-card playoff since 1999, when the Arizona-Dallas matchup received a 20.9 rating and a 38 share.

Saturday night's game, which had a peak rating/share of 21.6/37 during overtime, was also 10 percent higher than last year's Jacksonville-Pittsburgh game (16.6/27).

The early game on Saturday, Arizona's 30-24 victory over Atlanta, earned a 14.3 rating and 28 share, giving the network the best two-game overnight average (16.4/29) in four years and a 3 percent increase over last year's Saturday wild-card games.

Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets in the United States, covering nearly 70 percent of the country. Each overnight rating point represents about 735,000 TV homes. The rating is the percentage of all homes with TVs, whether or not they are in use. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

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