Paula Abdul's 'Live to Dance' Plummets 25%

The second episode of Paula Abdul’s Live To Dance sank 25% from its premiere on Tuesday night, finishing the 8 p.m. hour with a 1.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 7.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen. That was barely enough for a third place finish for the hour – Fox’s Minute to Win It garnered a 1.7 with 6.1 million viewers.

ABC and NBC tied for the night with a 2.7 each.

New episodes of ABC comedies The Middle (2.8, 9.3 million), Better With You (2.5, 7.4 million), Modern Family (4.8, 11.7 million) and Cougar Town (2.9, 6.7 million) gave ABC the win for the 8 and 9 p.m. hours. And all comedies were up double-digits compared to their last originals in early December. At 10 p.m., an ABC News hour about celebrity weight loss averaged a 1.6 with 4.4 million viewers.

NBC did respectably with Minute to Win It (2.1, 6.7 million) at 8 p.m. and back-to-back episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (9-10 p.m.), which posted a 2.9 and a 3.0, with more than 10 million viewers for each hour.

For Fox, back-to-back episodes of Human Target (8-10 p.m.) earned a 1.7 with more than 6 million viewers for each hour, for a fourth-place finish on the night.

And CBS’ telecast of The 37th Annual People’s Choice Awards (9-10 p.m.), hosted by Queen Latifah, was down 21% compared to last year’s show averaging a 2.7 with a little over 9 million viewers for the two-hour broadcast. That was the second smallest tune-in for the People’s Choice Awards ever; only 2008, the year of the Writer’s Guild strike, earned a smaller audience.