Ratings: American Idol Looms Large, But Lags Behind Its Previous Numbers
While American Idol continues to decimate its competition, it also keeps lagging behind its numbers for last season.
While American Idol continues to decimate its competition, it also keeps lagging behind its numbers for last season.
Wednesday's two-hour show, with the top dozen performing, averaged nearly 22.2 million viewers. It was down 9 percent from last year's comparable show among 18-to-49-year-olds, the industry's advertiser-coveted demo — but still more than the other four networks combined. It also declined 9 percent compared with last week.
In prime time's first hour, CBS' Survivor: Redemption Island attracted 10.3 million people — which means it didn't get a lift from last week's shocking exit of Russell Hantz. And it hit a series low in the demo.
Also at 8/7c, back-to-back repeats of ABC's The Middle averaged 4.7 million viewers, while Minute to Win It won over 3.3 million on NBC and the CW's America's Next Top Model drew 2 million viewers.
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At 9/8c, 13.7 million viewers tuned in to Criminal Minds to say goodbye to cast member Paget Brewster. The new episode's audience was a healthy improvement over the 8.2 million for a rerun last week. Repeats of Modern Family and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit totaled viewerships of 5.8 million and 3.3 million, respectively, while Shedding for the Wedding attracted 1 million on the CW. At9:30/8:30c, Mr. Sunshine tumbled to yet another series low — 4.6 million viewers.
At 10/9c, CBS' Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior rose to nearly 10.4 million viewers (up from 9.1 million last week). It won against yet another rerun of SVU (5.2 million viewers) and a first-run episode of ABC's Off the Map (4.2 million).