It’s the same story as last week, a two-hour American Idol performance show gives Fox an easy ratings victory on Wednesday night.
With the top 11 contestants crooning for the judges and viewers at home, Fox averaged a 7.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 23.6 million viewers overall. That’s down slightly week-to-week and year-to-year in the demo, but also more than the combined four-network competition.
CBS was the closest averaging a 2.9 rating in the demo with 10.9 million viewers. But Survivor: Redemption Island (2.9, 10.5 million) was down 6 percent week-to-week for its lowest-rated regular telecast ever. Criminal Minds (3.4, 12.8 million) was down 6 percent compared to its previous original on March 16. But with a new Criminal Minds as a lead-in, spinoff Suspect Behavior (2.3, 9.3 million) was up 5 percent, though that wasn’t enough to win the 10 p.m. time slot against a new episode of NBC’s Law & Order: SVU (2.4, 8.3 million). That was the bright spot in NBC’s lineup; Minute to Win It (1.1, 4.2 million) was down 8 percent week-to-week and a 9 p.m. rerun of Law & Order: SVU averaged a meager 1.0 rating with 4.2 million viewers overall. For the night, NBC averaged a 1.5 rating with 5.3 million viewers overall.
ABC, which programmed a mix of reruns and originals, also averaged a 1.5 rating for the night with 4.6 million viewers overall. With Wednesday night comedy Modern Family (2.0, 5.3 million) in reruns, lead-out Mr. Sunshine (1.4. 4.0 million) tumbled 33 percent for its lowest rated episode ever and 10 p.m. drama Off the Map (1.3, 4.1 million) matched its series low.
Univision out-rated both NBC and ABC; the Spanish language broadcaster averaged a 1.7 rating in the demo with 4.2 million viewers overall.
And The CW’s lineup of America’s Next Top Model and Shedding for the Wedding turned in a paltry 0.6 rating with 1.5 million viewers overall.
