AMERICAN IDOL - AMERICAN IDOL RETURNS

AMERICAN IDOL RETURNS

Fox's American Idol made another triumphant return to the air Tuesday night, but with "only" 30.07 million viewers. While that number trounced everything in sight -- not only for the night but for the season -- it was nevertheless down 10 percent from the 33.41 million who tuned in to the season opener of Idol a year ago. Nevertheless, viewership rose sharply during the two-hour telecast, beginning with just 18.04 million in the first half hour and peaking in the third half hour with 32.76 million. Surprisingly, CBS, with its strong Tuesday-night lineup, lost few viewers to the new Idol . Its long-running NCIS was able to pull in 18.48 million viewers, down just 3 percent from a week earlier, while freshman hit The Mentalist managed to attract 18.09 million viewers, down 7.6 percent from the previous week. NBC's The Biggest Loser performed decently in a two hour special which averaged 8.75 million viewers. But ABC's lineup ight just as well have been scrubbed, with two back-to-back episodes of Scrubs averaging just 4.5 million viewers.

14/01/2009