Fox's 'House' top Tuesday ratings

'Biggest Loser,' 'Law & Order' stand solid

By RICK KISSELL

Fox's "House" was easily the top-rated program among young adults on Tuesday, but NBC made some noise with the penultimate episode of "The Biggest Loser" and an original episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, Fox opened its winning night with "House" (5.6 rating/15 share in adults 18-49, 13.9 million viewers overall), which shot up nicely vs. the previous week, perhaps because drama rival "NCIS" on CBS aired a repeat (2.7/7 in 18-49, 14.1 million viewers overall). "NCIS" still stood as the evening's most-watched program overall.

The 9 o'clock repeat drama battle between CBS and Fox went to the Eye's "The Mentalist" (2.8/7 in 18-49, 13.7 million viewers overall), while Fox's "Fringe" came in at a 2.7/7 in the demo and 7.1 million viewers overall; beginning in late January, "Fringe" will get the benefit of an "American Idol" lead-in.

At NBC, its two-hour installment of "The Biggest Loser" hit season highs (3.6/9 in 18-49, 9.2 million viewers overall), gaining by 2 shares and 41% in rating from its first half-hour two its last (4.1/10 vs. 2.9/8). And closing out the night, "Law & Order: SVU" logged some of its best numbers of the season (3.7/10 in 18-49, 10.9 million viewers overall), easily topping CBS repeat "Without a Trace" (1.8/5 in 18-49, 8.5 million viewers overall) and crushing ABC's weak "Eli Stone" (1.4/4 in 18-49, 4.9 million viewers overall).

Earlier in the evening, ABC performed a bit better with a special holiday-themed episode of "America's Funniest Home Videos" (2.0/5 in 18-49, 7.3 million viewers overall) and a firstrun hour of "According to Jim" (1.7/4 in 18-49, 5.2 million viewers overall).

Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: Fox, 4.1/11; NBC, 3.6/10; CBS, 2.4/6; Univision, 1.8/5; ABC, 1.7/4; CW, 0.5/1.

In total viewers: CBS, 12.1 million; Fox, 10.5 million; NBC, 9.8 million; ABC, 5.8 million; Univision, 4.6 million; CW, 1.1 million.