‘American Idol’ makes Fox a star

FOX’S momentum from record viewership to end the television season with “American Idol” continued with strong viewership for “So You Think You Can Dance” to start the summer season, figures from Nielsen Media Research showed Wednesday.

The finale of “American Idol” drew 36.38 million viewers last week, the most to watch a night of non-sports programming in Fox’s 19 seasons of prime-time programming. It was also the third-biggest audience for a televised event this year after the Super Bowl and Academy Awards.

The “American Idol” final performance show a day earlier attracted 31.78 million and helped boost “House,” the medical drama that followed it, to its largest audience ever, 25.47 million.

Fox premiered the summertime competition “So You Think You Can Dance” on Thursday. Although that audience was only 10.7 million, it ranked 14th among last week’s prime-time shows and fared better than any installment of the show’s first season.

All those series records helped Fox average 14.75 million viewers between May 22 and Sunday, ending CBS’ 10-week streak as the most-watched network. CBS was second for the week, which mixed the final three days of the official season and the first four days of the summer season, with 8.96 million viewers.

The three-hour 41st annual Academy of Country Music Awards on CBS was able to avoid the trend of declining viewership for awards shows by attracting 12.02 million viewers, despite facing the final “American Idol” performance show for its first hour. The audience was the awards’ largest since 2003, when it averaged 12.08 million viewers.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Vargas had a solid performance in her final week as ABC’s “World News Tonight” anchor, with Charles Gibson taking over that job on Memorial Day.

ABC, which had fallen to third a couple of weeks ago, was in its closest competitive position to first-place NBC’s “Nightly News” since August.

“Nightly News” averaged 7.8 million viewers, “World News Tonight” had 7.5 million and the “CBS Evening News” 7 million.

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Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (May 22-28) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates there are 277.93 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.

*--* Program Net- work View- ers Program Net- work View- ers

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*--* 1 American Idol (Wed.) FOX 36.38 2 American Idol (Tue.) FOX 31.78 3 House FOX 25.47 4 CSI: Miami CBS 19.96 5 Lost (9 p.m.) ABC 17.84

6 Two and a Half Men CBS 15.51 7 Deal or No Deal (Mon.) NBC 14.21 8 24 FOX 13.75 9 CSI CBS 13.28 10 Old Christine (9:30 p.m.) CBS 13.06

11 “Academy of Country Music Awards” CBS 12.02 12 Without a Trace CBS 11.83 13 “Oprah Winfrey’s Legends Ball” ABC 11.59 14 So You Think Can Dance (Thu.) FOX 10.70 15 Medium NBC 10.04

16 Apprentice 5 NBC 9.96 17 King of Queens CBS 8.39 18 Lost (8 p.m.) ABC 8.38 19 “Fox NASCAR Nextel Cup” FOX 8.36 20 CSI: NY CBS 8.35

21 Numb3rs (Fri.) CBS 8.25 22 Numb3rs (Thu.) CBS 7.96 23 Law & Order (10 p.m.) NBC 7.75 24 Cold Case CBS 7.68 25 Old Christine (8:30 p.m.) CBS 7.53

26 “Stephen King’s Desperation” ABC 7.51 27 60 Minutes CBS 7.27 Close to Home CBS 7.27 29 20/20 ABC 7.23 30 Alias ABC 6.68 dash> 31 “10.5: Apocalypse,” Part 2 NBC 6.53 32 Primetime ABC 6.49 33 48 Hours Mystery CBS 6.43 34 Grey’s Anatomy ABC 6.41 35 Crossing Jordan NBC 6.39

36 Criminal Minds CBS 6.35 37 “We Were Soldiers” CBS 6.34 38 Dateline: NBC (Fri.) NBC 6.31 39 Dateline: NBC (Wed.) NBC 6.24 40 Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Sun.) NBC 6.14

41 Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Sat.) NBC 6.00 42 Crimetime Saturday (9 p.m.) CBS 5.84 43 “Freaky Friday” ABC 5.81 44 Ghost Whisperer CBS 5.73 45 ER NBC 5.54

46 America’s Funniest Home Videos ABC 5.53 47 Desperate Housewives ABC 5.52 48 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ABC 5.39 49 Most Outrageous Moments (8:30 p.m.) NBC 5.24 50 My Name Is Earl NBC 5.23

Law & Order (9 p.m.) NBC 5.23 52 “Dr Phil: Escaping Addiction 2” CBS 5.20 America’s Most Wanted FOX 5.20 54 Most Outrageous Moments (8 p.m.) NBC 5.15 Law & Order: SVU (Sat.) NBC 5.15

56 Crimetime Saturday (8 p.m.) CBS 5.06 57 Will & Grace NBC 5.02 58 Law & Order: SVU (Fri.) NBC 4.92 59 Las Vegas NBC 4.80 60 Cops (8:30 p.m.) FOX 4.67

61 “Enemy of the State” ABC 4.51 62 Office NBC 4.50 63 Fea Mas Bella (Tue.) UNI 4.16 64 Fea Mas Bella (Thu.) UNI 4.03 65 “Mona Lisa Smile” FOX 4.01

66 “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” ABC 3.99 Cops FOX 3.99 68 Barrera de Amor (Tue.) UNI 3.93 69 Fea Mas Bella (Mon.) UNI 3.91 70 Dateline: NBC (Sun.) NBC 3.89

71 Dateline: NBC (Sat.) NBC 3.87 72 Barrera de Amor (Mon.) UNI 3.81 73 Barrera de Amor (Thu.) UNI 3.77 74 Fea Mas Bella (Wed.) UNI 3.74 Barrera de Amor (Wed.) UNI 3.74

76 Fea Mas Bella (Fri.) UNI 3.66 77 Reyes de la Pista (Sun.) UNI 3.50 78 WWE Smackdown! UPN 3.48 79 Cristina UNI 3.32 80 Don Francisco Presenta UNI 3.31

81 Everwood WB 3.22 Barrera de Amor (Fri.) UNI 3.22 83 “Gordo y Flaca” UNI 3.04 84 Aqui y Ahora UNI 2.86 85 Peregrina (Tue.) UNI 2.71

86 Peregrina (Thu.) UNI 2.70 87 “Joan Seb: Trayectoria” UNI 2.63 88 Peregrina (Mon.) UNI 2.61 89 Peregrina (Wed.) UNI 2.50 90 Girlfriends UPN 2.44

91 Peregrina (Fri.) UNI 2.40 92 Half and Half UPN 2.35 93 Everybody Hates Chris UPN 2.34 94 Sabado Gigante UNI 2.13 95 Smallville WB 2.09

96 Reba (Sun., 7:30 p.m.) WB 2.03 97 All of Us UPN 1.95 98 America’s Next Top Model 6 UPN 1.92 99 7th Heaven WB 1.86 100 Reba (Fri.) WB 1.84

101 Reba (Sun., 7 p.m.) WB 1.81 102 Charmed (9 p.m.) WB 1.78 103 Supernatural WB 1.74 104 “Hair Show” UPN 1.70 Charmed (8 p.m.) WB 1.70

106 Gilmore Girls WB 1.69 107 “Daredevil” WB 1.67 108 Pepper Dennis WB 1.65 109 One on One UPN 1.62 110 What I Like About You WB 1.48

111 Twins WB 1.37 112 Chiquitibum UNI 1.35 113 Living With Fran WB 1.32 114 Love Inc. UPN 1.31 115 Casos Familia UNI 1.25

116 Eve UPN 1.23 117 Veronica Mars UPN 1.21 118 Hora Pico UNI 1.20 119 Cuts UPN 1.12 120 Tormenta (Tue.) TEL 1.12

121 Tormenta (Thu.) TEL 1.09 122 Tormenta (Fri.) TEL 1.05 123 Tormenta (Mon.) TEL 1.02 124 Decisiones (Wed.) TEL 0.99 125 Corazon Partido (Fri.) TEL 0.97

Tierra de Pasiones (Thu.) TEL 0.97 127 Tormenta (Wed.) TEL 0.96 128 Tierra de Pasiones (Fri.) TEL 0.95 129 Decisiones (Thu.) TEL 0.93 130 Tierra de Pasiones (Tue.) TEL 0.92

131 Decisiones (Fri.) TEL 0.91 132 Tierra de Pasiones (Wed.) TEL 0.89 133 Decisiones (Mon.) TEL 0.88 134 Decisiones (Tue.) TEL 0.87 135 Corazon Partido (Tue.) TEL 0.86

136 Tierra de Pasiones M TEL 0.84 137 Corazon Partido (Thu.) TEL 0.80 138 Corazon Partido (Wed.) TEL 0.79 139 Corazon Partido (Mon.) TEL 0.73

140 Cinemundo Premier TEL 0.61

141 Cinemundo del Sabado TEL 0.52 142 “En Concierto Lupillo” TEL 0.49 143 Loteria TEL 0.26 144 Corriendo y Grabando TEL 0.20

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Network averages

Here is the number of viewers (in millions) that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season.

*--* Network Last week Season to date FOX 14.75 10.01

CBS 8.96 12.48

ABC 7.33 10.68

NBC 6.30 9.61

UNI 3.25 3.78

UPN 2.07 3.09

WB 1.85 3.09

TEL 0.78 0.92

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