Fox’s winning pair: ‘Idol,’ ‘Fiance’

Monday’s return of the Fox ratings phenomenon “American Idol” and the debut of the controversial unscripted series “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance” teamed up to score the highest ratings thus far this season for both a returning and a debuting network series.

“This is super beyond our expectations,” Fox Entertainment President Gail Berman said Tuesday. “We’re feeling pretty tremendous over here.” The news was particularly welcome for Fox in light of several high-profile failures such as “Skin” and “The Next Joe Millionaire,” and the continuing struggles of the critically acclaimed “Arrested Development.”

The preview of the third season of “American Idol,” the unscripted talent show that has achieved pop culture status while launching the careers of singers Clay Aiken, Kelly Clarkson and Ruben Studdard, drew 29 million viewers Monday. By borrowing a page from NBC and making this a “super-sized” installment that ran eight minutes longer, ending at 9:08 p.m., Fox was able to increase the number of viewers who tuned in for the premiere of “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance,” which followed immediately.

“Idol,” which officially settled into its regular 8 p.m. time period Tuesday, ranked first in all key demographic groups and surpassed viewership for the third-season premiere episodes of other popular unscripted series such as “Survivor” and “The Bachelor.”

Said Berman: “We had expected the standard drop-off for a returning series. But viewers were obviously ready for it to come back.” She added that viewers were also eager to watch how judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson reacted to contestants with less than adequate singing talent.

“This is our big engine,” Berman said of “Idol,” and she expects the series to give a significant boost to other Fox shows, including “24” on Tuesdays, when “Idol” features competition performances, and “The O.C.” on Wednesdays, when “Idol” has a half-hour “elimination” show.

“Idol” certainly lured millions of viewers to “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance,” in which a beautiful bride-to-be introduces her overweight, uncouth fiance to her family and friends, telling them she is going to marry him. They are unaware that she is playing a practical joke in an attempt to win half a million dollars. But the “bride” is unaware that her “fiance” is really an actor and not a fellow reality-show contestant.

“My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance” scored an average of 19.6 million viewers at 9 p.m., the highest-rated premiere for a new network series in more than a year, beating the January 2003 premiere of “Joe Millionaire” by 1 million viewers. Though some critics have taken swipes at the series, calling it cruel and in bad taste, Berman is optimistic that viewers will return.

In an effort to give the show another boost, Fox announced Tuesday that encore episodes of “Fiance” will air Thursdays at 9 p.m., starting this week.

Providing a bit of insurance to achieve that goal is a “lost” episode of Fox’s hit “The Simple Life,” which will lead into the second installment of “Fiance.” The episode was, in fact, culled from unused footage taken when the show was made.