A two-hour “American Idol,” growing 13% from last week, gave Fox a Wednesday win with an 11.1 in the 18- to 49-year-old demo, according to preliminary Nielsen stats.
“Idol” beat up on the competition, giving Fox the nightly win with an 11.1, 44% better than the rest of the nets’ averages combined.
Wednesday’s “Idol” was the best Wednesday performance the show has seen since this season’s Wednesday premiere in mid-January.
NBC (2.4) took second with new episodes of “Deal or No Deal” (2.1) and “Law & Order” (3.1), followed by an encore of USA original “Law & Order: CI” (1.9).
“Deal” dipped 22% from last week’s episode, while “L&O” was the second highest-rated show of the night.
ABC (2.0) came in third with new episodes of “Wife Swap” (2.1), “Supernanny” (2.3) and the season finale of “Cashmere Mafia” (1.6).
“Mafia” suffered tremendously Wednesday with a laundry list of dishonors: lowest showing to date for the show, lowest-rated original programming for the night, and a drop of 20% from last week’s episode.
Posting a 1.9, fourth-place CBS aired a new “Big Brother” (1.9) and repeats of “Criminal Minds” (1.9) and “CSI: NY” (2.0), which is holding pretty steady from last week’s numbers.
The CW (1.4) brought out its season premiere of the 10th cycle of “America’s Next Top Model” (1.9), which was off 24% from the last cycle premiere of the show in September. It wasn’t facing “Idol” then.
However, the last time “ANTM” faced “Idol,” in late February 2007, “Model” posted a 2.6 during its premiere; that’s 27% better than this season’s premiere.
The CW rounded out the night with an encore of “Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious” (0.8).
SWEEPS TRACKER:
The nets are more than two-thirds of the way through the February sweeps. According to the most recent Nielsen numbers (through Feb. 18, or day 19 of sweeps), Fox is heads and tails above the rest of the pack with a 7.2 average in the 18-49 demo.
Why? Well, a little event called the Super Bowl might have something to do with it. NBC and ABC are tied for second with a 2.5. CBS, which had the Super Bowl last year, has a 2.3. The CW is fifth with a 0.9.
With the exception of Fox, all of the other nets are down from last year’s sweeps in all relevant categories (18-49, households and total viewers). This comes as no surprise, considering the writers strike effectively removed heavy hitters such as “CSI,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Heroes” from the mix.