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TV ratings: 'American Idol' opens to 30 million; 'NCIS' stays strong
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Fast National ratings for Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010The season premiere of "American Idol" was just about in line with its opening last year, giving FOX a big ratings win on Tuesday. "NCIS" and the rest of CBS' Tuesday lineup, meanwhile, held fairly steady against the "Idol" juggernaut.
The two-hour "Idol" premiere gave FOX 29.8 million viewers and a 15.9 rating/24 share for the night -- off just slightly (pending final same-day numbers) from the 30.4 million viewers who watched the 2009 premiere. CBS (16.7 million, 10.4/16) finished a strong second. There was a big dropoff to third-place NBC (7.5 million, 4.7/7), and a further one to No. 4 ABC (3.1 million, 2.0/3). The CW, still in rerun mode, managed only 729,000 viewers and a 0.5/1.
FOX also dominated the adults 18-49 ratings with an 11.7, up a tenth of a point over last year's "Idol" opener. CBS was the best of the rest at 3.5, followed by NBC at 2.8. ABC (1.0) and The CW (0.3) weren't really in the game.
Tuesday's hourly numbers:
8 p.m.
FOX: "American Idol" season premiere (27.9 million viewers, 15.0/22 households)
CBS: "NCIS" (20.7 million, 12.6/19)
NBC: "The Biggest Loser: Couples" (7.9 million, 4.9/7)
ABC: "Scrubs" rerun (2.5 million, 1.7/3)/"Better Off Ted" (2.2 million, 1.4/2)
The CW: "90210" rerun (770,000, 0.6/1)
18-49 leader: "American Idol" (10.8)
9 p.m.
FOX: "American Idol" season premiere (31.7 million, 16.8/25)
CBS: "NCIS: Los Angeles" (15.5 million, 9.7/14)
NBC: "The Biggest Loser" (8.3 million, 5.2/8)
ABC: "Scrubs" (2.7 million, 1.8/3)/"Better Off Ted" (2.5 million, 1.6/2)
The CW: "Melrose Place" rerun (688,000, 0.5/1)
18-49 leader: "American Idol" (12.7)
10 p.m.
CBS: "The Good Wife" (13.8 million, 8.9/15)
NBC: "The Jay Leno Show" (6.2 million, 3.9/7)
ABC: "The Forgotten" (4.4 million, 2.8/5)
18-49 leader: "The Good Wife" (3.0)
Ratings information includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change. Source: The Nielsen Company.
More ratings at Zap2it: Daily, weekly and cable
Photo credit: FOX
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are u high? no one watched melrose place.
ABC did well against stupid reality programming, even manged to hold off tough 9210 and Melrose, surprising. No doubt ABC reality programming rules in essence, it's a tour de farce comapared to ABC and CBS old fart skewing audence, must be a mipsprint how Lenno beat the forgotten, no way that ever happend, liars! LOL
Tue at 8 pm has to be the most watched hour of TV. 49 million views for Idol and NCIS! You have to go CBS props for having their top show go head to head with FOX's top show. I can't remember any other time in TV history when the #1 show in America went head to head with the #2 show in America.
So viewers don't miss Paula yet. In terms of series programming, AI is still king. But compared to the NFL, Idol is slipping. Barring a big bump in the final numbers, NBC's Philadelphia-Dallas wild card game will remain the season's most-watched program to date, although AI did beat the playoff in the money demo (11.7-11.6). In fact, the 9:00 hour isn't even Fox's most watched hour of the season! (Sunday's Packers-Cardinals overrun measured 33 million viewers.)
@ Aaron R
...in your dreams you CBS street teamer!
Surprised, but not too much with NCIS's ratings. They didn't drop much from last Tuesday's numbers. Looks like NCIS: LA dropped a bit from last week though.
The Good Wife got the same number of viewers as it did for last Tuesday's new episode I think. And those last week were up a bit from what it had been getting regularly since it's autumn debut last year. In terms of the ratings, is The Good Wife the second highest new drama this season after NCIS: LA?
You can't remember, Nick? How about two or three years ago, when #1s Grey's Anatomy moved to Thursdays against CSI? Both were top rated. Duh. Do some research.
its nice to see that the one show nbc gets decent ratings out of is a bunch of fat people exercising for 2 hours...does that mean that if they put jay leno on a treadmill every night at 10 then he might pull a 4.0 for once?....also nice to see ncis hold up strong against idol as well :) one of the few crime shows on cbs that is still good to watch
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Leno did really good 6.8 million! way above avrage and nice to see people support him! He deserves it and he is the best talk show host ever!!:)