• by Wayne Friedman , January 28, 2009

With all presidential inauguration activities out of the way, Fox's "American Idol" returned to its usual big numbers, as did its lead-out program "Fringe." Both dominated Tuesday night.

"Idol" took a Nielsen preliminary 9.6 rating/24 share among 18-49 viewers with "Fringe" earning a strong 4.8/11. Still, "Idol" is down from last Wednesday's edition--around 700,000 in total viewers--and 5 million viewers lower than its Jan. 13 premiere.

Fox earned a 7.3/17 among 18-49 viewers for the night. NBC was about less than half those numbers, at a 3.5/9. Then it was CBS at a 3.2/8, ABC at a 2.1/5, Univision at a 1.7/4, and CW at a 0.4/1.

CBS and NBC stayed competitive early in the night. CBS' "NCIS" continued its renewed strong showing this season, with a 3.9/10 second to "Idol" at 8 p.m. NBC's "Biggest Loser: Couples" was right behind with a 3.2/8.

But NBC picked up the pace big-time at 9 p.m. with "Idol" out of the way. It earned a 4.9/12 for the second hour of "Loser," just nipping ahead of "Fringe" for the lead during the 9 p.m. hour.

CBS had a repeat of "The Mentalist" at 9 p.m., which still took a respectable 2.9/70--typical for reruns of CBS' crime dramas. At 10 p.m., CBS won the hour with "Without a Trace," scoring a modest 2.7/7.

ABC didn't have much to offer on Tuesday. "Homeland Security USA" was still at the bottom of the pack with a 1.7/4 at 8 p.m. "Scrubs" at 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. offered up a mediocre 2.2/5 and a 2.3/5, respectively.

CW went into reruns with "90210" and "Privilege," which gave it a 0.4/1 and a 0.3/1 for the night.