Ratings: American Idol Dominates on Wednesday with 26.4 Million Viewers
Same story: Ratings are down a little bit, but American Idol still crushed everything in its path.
Another angle: Viewers miss Paula Abdul, but still watched the show anyway.
From Variety:
According to preliminary nationals, Wednesday's 90-minute installment of "American Idol" averaged a 10.1 rating/27 share in adults 18-49 and 26.4 million viewers overall from 8 to 9:30, down from the previous night's two-hour premiere scores of 11.8/29 in the demo and 29.9 million viewers overall. This is the lowest-rated opening Wednesday of the season for "Idol" since 2003, but at least some of that can be contributed to airing for only 90 minutes; the last half-hour is usually one of the strongest in a two-hour segment. And despite the dropoff, "Idol" beat its combined ABC-CBS-NBC-CW competition by about 50% in adults 18-49.
For its opening two nights, "American Idol" figures to come in about 5% below its year-ago averages.
Elsewhere, ABC's comedies were down from the previous week's above-average deliveries but held solid opposite "Idol," starting with "The Middle" at 8:30 (2.1/6 in 18-49, 6.6 million viewers overall) and "Modern Family" at 9 (3.2/8 in 18-49, 7.8 million viewers overall). And at 9:30 p.m., "Cougar Town" (3.1/8 in 18-49, 7.4 million viewers overall), which seemed to pick up some "American Idol" viewers, retained nearly all of its "Modern Family" lead-in. "Ugly Betty" finished off the night (1.6/4 in 18-49, 5.4 million viewers overall) in line with its numbers of last week.