TV Ratings: 'American Idol' drops more, but still wins Wednesday for FOX

Naomi Morris auditions on Wednesday's "American Idol."

Credit: FOX

Fast National ratings for Wednesday, January 23, 2013.

"American Idol" dropped another 10 percent from last week's low season premiere, but was still enough to lead FOX to a resounding win in the Wednesday ratings. Meanwhile, CBS' "CSI" hit a season-high and NBC's repeats actually finished sixth for the night, after both the CW and Univision.

For the night, FOX (and, therefore, "Idol") averaged a 5.4 rating among adults 18-49, and 16 million viewers overall. CBS was second (2.4, 10 million), followed by ABC (2.4, 7.15 million), the CW (1.0, 2.61 million) and (among English-language networks) NBC (0.8, 2.56 million).

8 p.m. -- "Idol" (5.3, 15.71 million) handily won the hour. ABC's "The Middle" and "The Neighbors" combined for second place (2.2, 7.43 million), followed by a "Criminal Minds" repeat on CBS (1.5, 6.78 million), "Arrow" on the CW (1.1, 3.13 million) and repeats of "Whitney" and "Guys with Kids" on NBC (0.8, 2.42 million).

9 p.m. -- "Idol" rose in its second hour (5.6, 16.3 million). ABC's "Modern Family" and "Suburgatory" combined for second place (3.2, 8.55 million), followed by a new "Criminal Minds" (3.0, 11.74 million) on CBS, the CW's "Supernatural" (0.9, 2.1 million) and a "Law & Order: SVU" repeat on NBC (0.7, 2.73 million).

10 p.m. -- CBS' "CSI" hit a season-high in the young-adult demo (2.7, 11.49 million), followed by ABC's "Nashville" (1.8, 5.47 million) and a "Chicago Fire" repeat on NBC (0.8, 2.53 million).
 

Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching

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Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com