NBC's six-hour event series "Revelations" bowed to good numbers Wednesday night despite facing a full hour of Fox's still-dominant "American Idol," according to preliminary nationals from Nielsen. Fox also did fairly well with the launch of Pamela Anderson comedy "Stacked."
In the 9 o'clock hour, "American Idol" (10.6 rating/26 share in adults 18-49, 24.1 million viewers overall) crushed the competition but NBC put up nice second-place numbers with the premiere of "Revelations" (5.0/12 in adults 18-49, 15.3 million viewers overall) - the net's best showing in the hour since last September. It got a solid, compatible lead-in from a special "Dateline" report on the book "The Da Vinci Code" (3.4/10 in adults 18-49, 10.7 million viewers overall).
Over at Fox, "Stacked" (3.6/10 in adults 18-49, 8.1 million viewers overall) built on its lead-in from "Simple Life 3" (2.8/9 in adults 18-49, 6.3 million viewers overall) and finished in a virtual tie with "Dateline" for the 18-49 lead at 8:30, and was on par with UPN's "America's Next Top Model" for the 18-34 lead. "Top Model," up week to week, led its hour in women 18-34 (4.8/14).
NBC's "Law & Order" (5.3/14 in adults 18-49, 16.7 million viewers overall), benefiting from a stronger lead-in, dominated at 10 over CBS' "CSI: NY" (3.7/10 in adults 18-49, 10.6 million viewers overall) and ABC's "Eyes" (2.5/7 in adults 18-49, 6.4 million viewers overall).
ABC was paced by a repeat "Lost" at 8 (3.2/10 in adults 18-49, 10.2 million viewers overall) and an original "Alias" at 9 (3.2/8 in adults 18-49, 8.0 million viewers overall).
Preliminary adults 18-49 averages for the night: Fox, 6.9/18; NBC, 4.6/12; ABC, 3.0/8; CBS, 2.5/7; UPN, 1.7/5; WB, 1.1/3.
In total viewers: Fox, 15.6 million; NBC, 14.3 million; CBS, 8.3 million; ABC, 8.2 million; UPN, 3.9 million; WB, 2.7 million.
Contact Rick Kissell at
rick.kissell@variety.com