Fox Easily Wins Wednesday Ratings with 'American Idol'

Ray Mickshaw/FOX

With two hours of American Idol, Fox easily won Wednesday night averaging a 7.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 22.5 million viewers overall. Season to date, Idol is down 9% in the demo and 4% in total viewers, which is better retention that Fox executives expected for the tenth season of the juggernaut.

REVIEW: Shedding for the Wedding

CBS was a distant second for the night (3.0, 11.5 million). Survivor: Redemption Island (3.3, 11.1 million) was up slightly (3%) over last week's premiere and Criminal Minds (3.4, 13.4 million) posted a 6% uptick. But while Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (2.5, 9.9 million) tied with NBC's Law & Order: SVU (2.5, 8.0 million) for first in the 10 p.m. hour, the spinoff was down 24% from last week's series premiere.

With mediocre performance for its Wednesday comedies, ABC was third for the night (2.3, 6.7 million). The Middle (2.4, 8.0 million) and Better With You (1.8, 5.8 million) were flat week-to-week. Modern Family (4.1, 10. 3 million) was second in its 9 p.m. half-hour behind Idol, but the comedy was down 5% week-to-week for a season low. And new 9:30 p.m. comedy Mr. Sunshine continues to shed viewers. The Matthew Perry vehicle averaged a 2.4 rating (with 6.4 million viewers), down 11% week-to-week and 35% from its series premiere three weeks ago. At 10 p.m., Off the Map (1.7, 4.8 million) was up 13% week-to-week, but still an also-ran in the hour.

NBC (1.6, 5.4 million) and Univision (1.6, 4.0 million) tied for fourth for the night.

The premiere of CW's weight-loss competition series Shedding for the Wedding gave the network its best reality bow in two years in the net's target demo of 18-34-year-olds. Shedding averaged a 1.1 rating in that demo with 1.5 million viewers overall. It's lead-in – the season premiere of Tyra Banks' America's Next Top Model (1.3, 2.2 million) – retained 93% of its fall premiere audience in the demo.