"Idol" Outlasts "Survivor"

Tue Mar 23, 5:05 PM ET

By Joal Ryan

Looks like the pen salesman is the real survivor.

In a rare Wednesday night match-up, reputed Bic boy Jon Peter Lewis and his fellow American Idol finalists helped starve out Survivor: All-Stars.

Airing in the 8:30-9:30 p.m. time slot on Fox, the singing competition’s results episode, in which Paula Abdul pick Leah LaBelle turned out to be the first Idol toppled, was watched by 22.9 million (second place), Nielsen Media Research said. Tuesday’s two-hour Idol was even bigger—first place, 26.7 million.

In the 8-9 p.m. Wednesday hour, CBS’ Survivor All-Stars, in which Survivor: Africa champ Ethan Zohn turned chump, averaged 19 million (third place)—off more than 15 percent from its usual performance.

Survivor: All-Stars was forced to fend for itself against Idol because of the men’s NCAA (news - web sites) basketball tournament, which CBS began airing last Thursday. The reality series will face the same challenge this Wednesday, as well.

At least Survivor hung in against William Hung’s crowd better than The Apprentice. Early in its run, NBC tried shifting the Donald Trump ego hour to Wednesdays, opposite Idol, only to reshift it back to Thursdays after one, inglorious outing.

NBC still airs Apprentice repeats on Wednesday, albeit with little success. Last week’s ran fourth in its time slot—80th place, 5.6 million viewers.

The week’s all-new Apprentice, actually a compilation of Trump’s greatest firings, fared much better on Thursday—fourth place, 17.5 million mogul admirers.

Elsewhere in the TV week ended Sunday:

NBC’s latest Average Joe incarnation, Average Joe: Adam Returns, gave the nerds a measure of revenge. The reality series, starring inaugural Average Joe castoff Adam Mesh, outdrew January’s Average Joe: Hawaii debut, 10.7 million to 9.6 million, running 26th. A reality show in which nobody dated, nobody sang and nobody subsisted on rice was a surprise hit, with CBS’ 60 Minutes rising to the Top 10 (fifth place, 16.2 million) on the strength of a regular ol’ talking-head interview with a former Bush Administration official critical of the President’s invasion of Iraq (news - web sites). Fox’s corpse-friendly Tru Calling showed signs of life with 5.5 million viewers (81st place), an improvement of more than 1 million on its season-to-date average. Given the current rate of channel proliferation, by the year 2030 the ratings for CBS’ futuristic new lawyer series, Century City (set in the year 2030), may well look fabulous. In the year 2004, they merely look okay—46th place, 8.9 million. In any decade, CBS’ new Wednesday comedy The Stones would sink like a bag-full of ’em—62nd place, 7.1 million. ABC’s Hope & Faith (68th place, 6.9 million) gave the network little hope or faith in its T.G.I.F. lineup, now hosting Steven Weber (news)’s latest cursed series, The D.A. (67th place, 6.9 million). While it was no Survivor, the NCAA men’s hoops tourney was a gamer for CBS. Ratings for the first four days and nights of "March Madness (news - web sites)" coverage (Thursday-Sunday) were up 53 percent from last year’s Iraq War-interrupted rounds. HBO’s latest new drama series, the Western Deadwood, got off to a dry start Sunday night, averaging 5.8 million, a fall off of about 40 percent from its Sopranos lead-in (10.1 million).

Overall, CBS was the most watched network among all viewers (averaging 11 million viewers); Fox was the most watched network among all cool viewers (aged 18-49).

Thanks to Idol, Fox made a run at NBC in total viewers, averaging 10.3 million to the Peacock’s 10.6 million. ABC held down fourth in both demos and viewers (8.4 million).

Among the netlets, UPN distanced itself from the WB, 3.4 million to 3.1 million.

Here’s a rundown of the 10 most watched shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 26.7 million 2. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 22.9 million 3. Survivor: All-Stars, CBS, 19 million 4. The Apprentice, NBC, 17.5 million 5. 60 Minutes, CBS, 16.2 million 6. Friends, NBC, 15.3 million 7. Will & Grace, NBC, 15 million 8. Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS, 14.95 million 9. Fear Factor, NBC, 14.5 million 10. Cold Case, CBS, 14.4 million