"American Idol" inched down to a new low for Wednesday performance shows on Wednesday night, but still managed to deliver an overall win for Fox as other networks aired lots of repeats. Meanwhile, ABC's "Suburgatory" dropped to a series low, according to preliminary numbers.
"Idol," which filled Fox's primetime slate, grabbed the night's top ratings in the advertiser-preferred 18-49 demographic with a 3.7 rating/10 share and in total viewers with 12.7 million. That was the good news for the show. The bad news was that both ratings and total viewers were down 3 percent from last Wednesday, when the show hit a low for Wednesday performance shows. It drew its lowest demo performance since July 2003 and its smallest audience since August 2002.
CBS drew a distant second place in ratings and total viewers with a 1.9/5 and 7.9 million. "Survivor" at 8 p.m. was down slightly from last week with a 2.5/7 and had 9.4 million total viewers. Otherwise the network aired repeats.
Univision came in third in ratings and fourth in total viewers with a 1.8/5 and 4.3 million.
ABC took fourth place in ratings and third in total viewers with a 1.5/4 and 4.8 million. "The Neighbors" at 8:30 held steady with a 1.7/5 and took 5.6 million total viewers. "Suburgatory" at 9:30 fell 23 percent to a series low of 1.7/4 and had 4.6 million total viewers. Otherwise ABC aired repeats.
NBC came in fifth in ratings and total viewers with a 1.1/3 and 3.8 million. The network also aired mostly repeats, aside from "Whitney" at 8, which climbed 8 percent for a 1.3/4 and drew 3.8 million total viewers.
