Fox wins night but 'Talent' holds on

'Philanthropist' wins timeslot with solid sampling

By STUART LEVINE

Although Fox won the Wednesday night ratings race, NBC had to feel good about seeing its reality star “America’s Got Talent” hold on to its opening-night numbers from Tuesday. In addition, the premiere of the Tom Fontana series “The Philanthropist” received a solid sampling for the Peacock against an ABC News special and a CBS repeat of “CSI: NY.”

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, “America’s Got Talent” (3.1 rating/9 share in the 18-49 demo, 10.3 million viewers) was easily the most-watched program of the night and may have slowed down the momentum of “So You Think You Can Dance” (2.8/9, 7.4m).

“The Philanthropist” (2.0/6, 7.4m), which had the luxury of following “Talent” at 10 p.m., might not be a star for NBC, but it fared much better than the June 4 opener of “The Listener” (1.4/4, 5.3m), NBC’s other summer scripted skein. It also topped last week’s repeat of “Law & Order” (1.4/4, 4.9m) in the timeslot.

Best for ABC was “Wipeout” (2.7/9, 7.7m), followed by “I Survived a Japanese Game Show” (1.6/5, 4.1m) and a poor showing for the special “Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America” (1.1/3, 4.7m).

CBS offered repeats of “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (1.1/4, 4.7m), “Gary Unmarried” (1.1/3, 4.3m), “Criminal Minds” (1.6/5, 7.3m) and the aforementioned “CSI: NY” (1.7/5, 7.3m).

Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: Fox, 2.8/9; NBC, 2.2/7; ABC, 1.8/6; CBS, 1.5/5; Univision, 1.3/4; CW, 0.5/1.

In total viewers: Fox, 7.4 million; NBC, 7.4 million; CBS, 6.4 million; ABC, 5.5 million Univision, 3.4 million; CW, 1.0 million.