'Dance' does it again for Fox

Two-hour installment propels net to ratings win

By RICK KISSELL

Fox dominated Wednesday's primetime ratings race with another two-hour installment of "So You Think You Can Dance." Also on the night, unscripted skeins "Wipeout" on ABC and "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here" on NBC both dipped when facing both each other and Fox's "Dance" in the 8 o'clock hour.

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, "So You Think You Can Dance" (3.4 rating/10 share in adults 18-49, 8.8 million viewers overall) was the night's No. 1 program in adults 18-49 as well as adults 18-34 (3.3/11). Its two-hour episode was on par with its Wednesday performance of the previous week.

Elsewhere, ABC's "Wipeout" (2.9/9 in 18-49, 8.4 million viewers overall) remains potent despite dropping about 10% from its premiere of last week. It finished just a tick behind "Dance" for the 8 o'clock hour's lead in 18-49 while standing as the timeslot's most-watched program overall. Things went downhill fast from there for the net, though, as animated comedy "The Goode Family" put up some bad numbers with original episodes at 9 p.m. (1.2/4 in 18-49, 3.2 million viewers overall) and 9:30 p.m. (0.9/3 in 18-49, 2.2 million viewers overall) and firstrun drama "The Unusuals" finished a distant third among the English-language broadcasters at 10 p.m. (0.9/3 in 18-49, 2.9 million viewers overall).

NBC's "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here" continued its downward descent through the week (1.8/6 in 18-49, 4.8 million viewers overall), finishing well behind its tough unscripted competition from "Dance" and "Wipeout"; still, this repped a three-month timeslot high for the network. Things improved at 9 o'clock with the second half of the Brian Williams news special "Inside the Obama White House" (2.3/7 in 18-49, 9.0 million viewers overall) -- which hit a six-month timeslot high -- and the net finished on top at 10 p.m. with the season finale of "Law & Order" (2.3/7 in 18-49, 8.8 million viewers overall).

CBS didn't do much with repeats of comedies "The New Adventures of Old Christine" (1.3/4 in 18-49, 4.7 million viewers overall) and "Gary Unmarried" (1.3/4 in 18-49, 4.6 million viewers overall) but was competitive with encores of dramas "Criminal Minds" (2.0/6 in 18-49, 8.6 million viewers overall) and "CSI: NY" (2.0/6 in 18-49, 7.7 million viewers overall). 

In latenight, the overnight metered-market score for NBC's "Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien" dipped further to a 4.3 household rating/11 share, although it still outperformed the network's second-quarter average in the 11:35 p.m. hour by about 10%. "Tonight" also easily beat competiting programs like CBS "Late Show With David Letterman" (2.8/7) and ABC's "Nightline" (2.7/6) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live" (1.2/4).

Preliminary 18-49 averages for primetime: Fox, 3.4/10; NBC, 2.1/6; CBS, 1.8/5; ABC, 1.6/5; Univision, 1.4/4; CW, 0.4/1.

In total viewers: Fox, 8.8 million; NBC, 7.5 million; CBS, 7.0 million; ABC, 4.7 million; Univision, 3.6 million; CW, 1.0 million.