• by Wayne Friedman , March 11, 2009

Tuesday offered up the same big "American Idol" results--and the same run-and-hide programming strategy from the competition.

 

The big Fox show--a two-hour version--even improved a bit from its week-ago Tuesday results--a Nielsen preliminary 9.3 rating/24 share, up from a 9.0/23.

Only NBC wanted to show up and fight a bit with a two-hour "Biggest Loser: Couples" reaching a 3.8/10. It improved from a 3.5/8 a week ago. "Loser" not only was the second-best-rated show for the night next to "Idol," but it gained its second hour--climbing to a 4.2/10 from a 3.4/9 in the first hour. This was its best performance ever against a two-hour "Idol."

NBC also easily won at 10 p.m. with an original "Law & Order: SVU" at 3.7/10--against a CBS "Without a Trace" repeat (2.1/6) and an ABC News "Primetime: What Would You Do?" (1.9/5).

CBS took no chances and went into repeats the entire night for "NCIS," "The Mentalist," and "Trace."

CW came back to life after reruns on Monday. A "Reaper" original posted a 0.8/2 in the 18-49 demographic, and a 0.9/3 with 18-34 viewers. This was down a bit from its premiere a week ago, when it took in a 0.9/2 among both 18-49 and 18-34 viewers.

ABC went down a bit with its modest reality effort "Homeland Security USA"--a 1.4/4 versus a 1.6/4 the week before. A "Scrubs" repeat following "Homeland" took a 1.1/3.

The average ratings among 18-49 viewers for the night went this way: Fox, 9.3/24; NBC, 3.7/10; CBS, 2.6/7; Univision, 1.6/4; ABC, 1.5/4; and CW 0.6/2.