Ratings: Fox Wins Slow Night With ‘Idol’; ‘Zero Hour,’ ‘1600 Penn’ Hit Lows

Freshman NBC comedy "1600 Penn" drops 9 percent in key demo to hit a series low

On a slow Thursday night loaded with repeats and marked by depressed TV usage in the key demographic, Fox won the night with "American Idol," despite the show being down slightly from last week.

Fox aired "American Idol" throughout its primetime slate, taking first place in ratings with a 3.8 rating/11 share in the key 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with 12.5 million. "Idol" dropped 3 percent in the demo from last week, which isn't particularly disheartening, given that overall TV usage in the demo was down 7 percent from last week in the 8 to 10 p.m. window that "Idol" occupied.

CBS, which aired repeats throughout the night, took a distant second place in ratings and total viewers with  2.0/6 and 8.9 million.

Univision drew third in ratings and total viewers with a 1.7/5 and 3.9 million.

ABC tied NBC for fourth in ratings and took fourth outright in total viewers with 3.7 million. The new drama "Zero Hour," which has struggled in the ratings since its Feb. 14 premiere, slid another 9 percent to a 1.0/3 — its poorest performance so far in its admittedly short existence — and had 5 million total viewers. Repeats filled the rest of the network's night.

NBC, in fifth place in total viewers with 2.8 million, ran repeats, aside from "Community" at 8, which ran even with last week to tie a series low of 1.1/4 and had 2.7 million total viewers, and the freshman comedy "1600 Penn" at 9:30, which slid 10 percent to hit its own series low of 0.9/2 and took 2.2 million total viewers.

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