TV Ratings: 'American Idol' gives FOX easy Wednesday win

"American Idol" contestant Candice Glover.

Credit: FOX

Fast National ratings for Wednesday, March 14, 2013.

The first night of the "American Idol" season 12 finals led FOX to a comfortable win on a Wednesday night when most of the competition was repeats.

For the night, FOX averaged a 3.6 rating among adults 18-49, and 13.08 million viewers overall. Thanks to a new "Survivor," CBS finished second (2.0, 8.22 million), followed by ABC (1.2, 3.95 million), NBC (1.1, 3.81 million) and the CW (0.4, 1.51 million).

8 p.m. -- The first hour of "Idol" cruised to victory with a 3.4 demo rating and 12.31 million viewers. CBS was second with "Survivor" (2.5, 9.55 million), followed by a repeat "The Middle" and a new "The Neighbors" on ABC (1.4, 4.71 million), a "Whitney" original/repeat combo on NBC (1.0, 2.98 million) and an "Arrow" repeat on the CW (0.5, 1.68 million).

9 p.m. -- "Idol" (3.8, 13.86 million) crushed all comers, followed by a "Criminal Minds" repeat on CBS (1.8, 7.28 million), repeats of "Modern Family" and "Suburgatory" on ABC (1.5, 4.36 million), a "Law & Order: SVU" repeat on NBC (1.0, 2.98 million) and a "Supernatural" rerun on the CW (0.4, 1.35 million).

10 p.m. -- Reruns as far as the eye can see, with CBS' "CSI" (1.7, 7.84 million) doing better than both NBC's "Chicago Fire" (1.1, 3.84 million) and ABC's "Nashville" (0.7, 2.77 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