TV Ratings: Two-hour 'American Idol' sends the Wednesday competition reeling
FOX dominates the night in all key measures
"American Idol"
Credit: FOX
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Who knew that the halo of declining ratings around Valentine's Day was this powerful? Wednesday marked the third consecutive night of steeply declining ratings to start this week. Of course the culprit for the other four networks probably wasn't a romantic holiday in this instance: FOX's "American Idol" dominated the evening with a two-hour Hollywood Week episode, contributing to most of the falling ratings in the 9 p.m. hour.
Among adults 18-49, FOX averaged a 6.0 rating, more than doubling the 2.9 rating for CBS in the key demographic. ABC was third with a 2.8 rating, followed by NBC's 1.3 rating and the 0.5 rating for The CW.
Overall, FOX averaged an estimated 18.63 million viewers and a 10.7 rating/17 share to dominate Wednesday night. CBS was a distant second with a 6.9/11 and 11.22 million viewers, still far ahead of the 5.0/8 and 7.86 million viewers for ABC. There was another big gap before NBC's 4.29 million viewers and 2.9/5. The CW averaged only 930,000 viewers and a 0.6/1 for Wednesday.
8 p.m. - "American Idol" averaged 17.82 million viewers and a 5.5 rating among adults 18-49 to rule the 8 p.m. hour for FOX. The season premiere of "Survivor: One World" averaged 10.7 million viewers and a 3.0 key demo rating, down a tiny bit from both the show's September premiere and last February's premiere against "Idol." The added juice of "Survivor" competition knocked ABC's "The Middle" (8.05 million and a 2.5 key demo) and "Suburgatory" (6.93 million and a 2.4 key demo) down a little. NBC's "Whitney" (4.46 million and a 1.6 key demo) was one of the few shows to post gains the week, leading into a barely-down "Are You There, Chelsea?" (3.485 million and a 1.4 key demo). The CW's "One Tree Hill" averaged 1.36 million viewers and a 0.7 key demo rating.
9 p.m. - The second hour of "American Idol" was up to 19.435 million viewers and a 6.4 rating among adults 18-49 for FOX and sent a ripple across the entire hour. [The 8 p.m. hour of "Idol" was down from the one-hour show last week, but the 9 p.m. hour helped "Idol" basically equal last week's total.] CBS' "Criminal Minds" averaged 11.9 million viewers for second and a 3.0 key demo rating for third. ABC was second in the demo and third overall with "Modern Family" (11.22 million and a 4.7 key demo) and "Happy Endings" (5.75 million viewers and a 2.5 key demo). NBC's "Rock Center" averaged only 3.05 million and a 0.8 key demo, in its own way as embarrassing as the 497,000 viewers and 0.2 key demo for The CW's new "Remodeled."
10 p.m. - Despite a big drop in its lead-in, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" was steady with 11.06 million viewers and a 2.7 rating among adults 18-49 for Elisabeth Shue's debut. ABC's "Revenge" averaged nearly 7.6 million viewers and a 2.4 key demo rating for a heavily promoted episode. And NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" averaged 5.845 million viewers and a 1.7 key demo rating in third.
All ratings information comes from preliminary Fast National Nielsen data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are subject to change.
A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.
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February 16, 2012 at 2:15PM EST Reply to CommentEven though it is down a little from the past, decent night for Survivor. I like Brian Williams a lot, but at this point I think only his family and close friends are watching "Rock Center"