‘American Idol’ ratings continue to drop, while ‘Whitney’ and ‘Are You There, Chelsea?’ experience surprising gains

Wednesday’s American Idol continued the show’s decline in the ratings, but it was still enough to help Fox win the night in both audience numbers and ratings. Elsewhere, NBC’s Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea? had surprising gains against ABC’s sitcom repeats.

Fox came out on top with an average of 13.06 million viewers and a 4.4 18-49 rating, reports Hit Fix. Idol kicked off the night with 18.19 million viewers and a 5.9 18-49 rating, but that was an 8 percent drop from last week’s Wednesday episode, according to Deadline. Mobbed pulled down Fox’s average numbers, drawing a respectable 7.9 million viewers and a 2.9 18-49 rating. Still, that was a notable improvement from previous episodes where it did not have Idol as a lead in. The 2.9 rating was a 123 percent jump from its last new episode.

CBS came in a distant second with 8.1 million viewers and a 1.9 18-49 rating. The network started off with a special about Super Bowl commercials, which drew 8.7 million viewers and a 2.1 18-49 rating, a 5 percent jump from last year’s, according to Entertainment Weekly. That was followed by a Criminal Minds repeat that drew the largest audience of the 9 p.m. hour with 8.23 million viewers. It had a 2.1 18-49 rating. A repeat of CSI finished with 7.4 million viewers.

NBC actually came in third, but it was a very distant third. The network averaged just under 5 million viewers and earned an overall 1.5 18-49 rating. Both Whitney and Are You There Chelsea? were up 21 percent from last week, notes Deadline. Still that only translated to 4.4 million viewers and a 1.7 18-49 rating for Whitney and 4.1 million viewers and a 1.7 18-49 rating for Chelsea. Repeats of Law & Order: SVU followed, with the first drawing 4.79 million and the second drawing 5.82 million viewers.

ABC aired all repeats, drawing an average of 4.77 million viewers and a 1.5 18-49 rating. The network’s best hour was 9 p.m., when Modern Family and Happy Endings averaged 6.45 million viewers.

The CW aired a new episode of One Tree Hill, which drew 1.47 million viewers and a 0.7 18-49 rating. Remodeled drew 745,000 viewers, earning an embarrassing 0.3 18-49 rating in its first episode in its regular Wednesday 9 p.m. slot.