On a night with few original programs due to coverage on the major networks of President Obama's State of the Union Address, it was a special repeat hour of ''American Idol'' that drew the most young-adult eyeballs.
Preliminary estimates from Nielsen are subject to more revision than usual due to the live address, which aired from about 8 to 9:30 p.m. ET. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox all aired an hour of entertainment programming from 8 to 9 p.m., and the Big Three capped the night with either repeat comedies or news analysis from 10:30 to 11.
''American Idol'' averaged a 3.3 rating/9 share in adults 18-49 and 9.5 million viewers overall from 8 to 9 p.m. with a special auditions episode that originally aired following football on Sunday; the net was repeating it because it didn't hit the air in much of the country until nearly 11 o'clock Sunday night.
Also in the opening hour, NBC aired a trimmed-down version of ''The Biggest Loser'' (2.1/6 in 18-49, 6.3 million viewers overall), CBS went with a repeat of ''NCIS'' (2.0/5 in 18-49, 12.4 million viewers overall) and ABC showed repeats of ''Last Man Standing'' at 8 (1.4/4 in 18-49, 5.5 million viewers overall) and 8:30 (1.4/4 in 18-49, 5.2 million viewers overall). ''NCIS'' drew the most total viewers of any show on the night.
From 9 to 10:30 p.m., early numbers for the State of the Union showed CBS and NBC drawing about 7.1 million viewers overall, ABC about 6 million, and Fox roughly 5.3 million. NBC drew the best score among adults 18-49 (2.0/5) and 25-54 (2.5/5).
From 10:30 to 11 p.m., NBC led with news analysis (1.2/3 in 18-49, 5.3 million viewers overall) while CBS aired a repeat of ''The Big Bang Theory'' (1.0/3 in 18-49, 4.3 million viewers overall) and ABC an encore of ''Modern Family'' (1.0/3 in 18-49, 3.8 million viewers overall).
The CW was able to benefit a bit from the atypical night, with both ''90210'' (0.7/2 in 18-49, 1.3 million viewers overall) and ''Remodeled'' (0.4/1 in 18-49, 0.9 million viewers overall) up a tick week to week.
Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: Fox, 2.3/6; NBC, 1.9/5; CBS and Univision, 1.6/4; ABC, 1.4/3; CW, 0.5/1.
In total viewers: CBS, 8.4 million; Fox, 7.0 million; NBC, 6.5 million; ABC, 5.4 million; Univision, 4.0 million; CW, 1.1 million.
Contact Rick Kissell at
rick.kissell@variety.com