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TV ratings: 'American Idol,' Obama dominate Wednesday
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Fast National ratings for Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010A fair number of people who watched "American Idol" Wednesday kept their TVs tuned to FOX for the State of the Union address, giving the network an edge over coverage of the speech on ABC, CBS and NBC.
Ratings for all the big four networks were affected by the State of the Union, but thanks to "Idol" FOX ended the night in first place with 17.2 million viewers and a 9.6 rating/15 share in households. ABC (6.3 million, 3.9/6) finished second, followed by NBC (5.7 million, 3.7/6). CBS was not far behind with 5.4 million viewers and a 3.6/6. The CW (1.1 million, 0.8/1), which didn't air the speech, trailed.
FOX also led among adults 18-49 with a 6.4 rating. ABC took second with a 1.8, followed by NBC, 1.5; CBS, 1.4; and The CW, 0.5.
Wednesday hour by hour:
8 p.m.
FOX: "American Idol" (24.75 million viewers, 13.4/21 households)
ABC: "Modern Family" rerun (5.7 million, 3.6/6)/"The Middle" rerun (5.3 million, 3.3/5)
CBS: "Old Christine" rerun (5.1 million, 3.6/6)/"Gary Unmarried" rerun (4.8 million, 3.2/5)
NBC: "Mercy" rerun (4.15 million, 2.7/4)
The CW: "Gossip Girl" rerun (797,000, 0.6/1)
18-49 leader: "American Idol" (9.1)
9 p.m.
FOX: State of the Union address (9.7 million, 5.7/9)
ABC: State of the Union address (7.6 million, 4.7/7)
NBC: State of the Union address (7.15 million, 4.5/7)
CBS: State of the Union address (6.2 million, 4.1/6)
The CW: "Life Unexpected" rerun (1.4 million, 1.0/1)
18-49 leader: FOX/State of the Union (3.6)
10 p.m.
NBC: State of the Union/analysis (5.8 million, 3.7/6)
ABC: State of the Union (7.2 million, 4.6/7)/"Cougar Town" rerun (4.1 million, 2.8/5)
CBS: State of the Union (6.1 million, 3.9/6)/"Two and a Half Men" rerun (4.2 million, 2.9/5)
18-49 leader: ABC and NBC tied at 1.6
Ratings information includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change, especially in the case of live telecasts. Source: The Nielsen Company.
More ratings at Zap2it: Daily, weekly and cable
Photo credit: Getty Images
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Nice headline Rick but I have on question how can Obama dominate anything when he was the only thing on? Plus about 10 million less people watched Obama then watched the hour before so I think you are using the word dominate wrong(but hey your the "writer" not me)
Was Ugly Betty even on last night? Not that it matters...it wont be on much longer now that it got canceled today. Guess only the Yoga crowd watched that poor sad show...and we all know there isnt enough of them to keep a loser show afloat. Oh well..I am sure ABC will come up with something!
Are these tv ratings based on viewing in the Eastern Time Zone? When I turned on the tv at 8 pm Pacific there was no State of the Union address on any of the major channels, just CNN.
This wasn't the West Coast schedule. Don't know how that affects the ratings? In California, I watched Modern Family and Cougar Town in the 9pm hour.
Fox News does so well because its the only news network that tells the truth!!! It will only get higher and higher ratings as more and more Americans "wake up"!
and now we know "flowerlady11" is crazy as a loon!