A double-shot of the unstoppable American Idol won the ratings game against the Olympic Games on Tuesday night, giving Fox an average 12.9 rating/30 share in the 18-49 demo over NBC’s 7.2/17. The finish was closer in households, where Fox got a 16.8/24 to NBC’s 15.1/22. This is according to Fast Affiliate overnight ratings (preliminary).
Although NBC’s Olympic coverage included the traditionally popular female ice skating competition, the Idol warblers won their time slots handily in 18-49. In the 8-9 slot, Idol notched a 12.0/29 to the Games’ 5.2/13. From 9-10, NBC’s 7.1/16 was no match for Fox’s 13.7/30. It was only when Idol was over that the Games were able to win a time slot, easily beating the competition from 10-11 with a 9.2/22.
Coming in at a distant third for the night was CBS with a 3.0/7. Its highest-rated program of the night was a repeat of CSI, which scored a 3.9/10 in the 10-11 time slot.
ABC was fourth with a 2.6/6 for its lineup of sitcoms (it aired a repeat of According To Jim at 8 and an original episode at 9) and Boston Legal from 10-11.
Univision’s telenovelas gave the Spanish-language network a fifth-place finish.
The noncompetitive WB and UPN both went to the movies. The WB was sixth for the night with its showing of the feature film Final Destination 2. UPN barely registered with a 0.6/1 for the cinematic offering Black Night.
