• by Wayne Friedman , January 27, 2010

It's still early, only January -- but the end of the season rating forecast seems to favor Fox.

"American Idol" took in a Nielsen preliminary 9.0 rating/24 share among 18-49 viewers, down 12% from last week's Tuesday outing. Fox's new show "Human Target," which followed "Idol," grabbed a nice 3.2/8, down just 6% from the week before.

While down a bit overall, Fox had little to worry about from its competition. The net was almost three ratings points higher than the nearest competitor. Fox had a 6.1/16 among 18-49 viewers and CBS earned a 3.3/9.

CBS continued to be resilient with its "NCIS" franchise -- with a 4.1/11 for "NCIS, down 5% from a week before, and a 3.8/10 for "NCIS: Los Angeles," up over 20% from the previous week's airing.

NBC's "The Biggest Loser" continued to be one of the network's few big-rated shows. Against "Idol" and "NCIS" in the 8 p.m. hour, it still took in a healthy 3.2/8. Then with some competition out of the way at 9 p.m., the second hour of "Loser" reached a 4.4/11, winning the 9 p.m. time period. NBC ended the night at a 3.2/9, just a tick behind CBS.

NBC even scored at 10 p.m, with "The Jay Leno Show" getting to a 2.0/6 -- better than its season average. That said, it was running up against two repeats from CBS: "The Good Wife" and ABC's "Lost."

ABC ran for cover against big heavyweights, offering "Scrubs" at a 1.2/3 at 8 p.m., one of the remaining original episodes of "Better off Ted," at 1.0/2 at 8:30 p.m., and then two repeats of "Lost." It landed behind Univision in fifth place at a 1.3/3.

The CW, in repeat mode with "90210" and "Melrose Place," earned a 0.4/1 among 18-49 viewers, and an average 920,000 overall viewers.