TV Ratings: 'American Idol' Gives 'Glee' Finale a Boost, 'Dancing' and 'Talent' Tie for Second

FOX

Fox scored a softer win Tuesday night, shifting the schedule a bit to accommodate the season finale of Glee and the penultimate episode of American Idol.

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The lineup, which saw Glee bow an hour later than normal at 9 p.m., duplicated the musical's primetime launch three years ago with an Idol lead-in. It brought the network an average 3.6 rating among adults 18-49 and 11 million viewers for the night, with Idol pulling a 4.2 in the demo (down 14 percent from last week's two-hour episode) and Glee up 20 percent from last week with a 3.0 adult rating. Even with the boost, however, it was down a point and a half from the previous season finale.

Dancing With the Stars closed the book on another season with a two-hour finale, earning a recent results-show-high of a 3.2 rating among adults 18-49 and 17.5 million viewers but still down considerably from the finales of yesteryear -- most notably by 30 percent in the demo from last spring's ender. Kicking off the night with an encore of the Monday performances, ABC averaged a 2.6 rating for the night and a dominant 14.6 million viewers.

NBC pulled in third with a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49. A repeat of America's Got Talent led into a new episode, tying Dancing with a 3.2 in the demo, and a Dateline special that pulled in a 1.6 rating among adults 18-49.

Encores filled the CBS, giving the Eye a 1.5 rating with adults 18-49 and 8.6 million viewers for the night. Its sister network, The CW, only had one new offering with the 9 p.m. broadcast of The L.A. Complex, which pulled in a  0.2 in the demo.