American Idol was down a smidge from last week -- with an 11.4 rating/29 share average in Nielsen Media Research overnight numbers for the key 18-49 demo, compared with an 11.5/30 the previous Tuesday night -- but that was still enough to crush the competition.
Fox's drama House was up strongly over last week, however, with a personal best 6.4/16, compared to a 5.7/15 in the overnights for its previous outing. The critically acclaimed drama continues to hold on to an impressive number of those Idol eyeballs.
For the night, Fox was the easy winner with an 8.9/22, with ABC and NBC tied for second with a 3.5/9.
ABC's top show was According to Jim, with a 4.4/11 at 9. The penultimate episode of cop drama NYPD Blue took second place at 10 p.m. with a 3.6/10. NBC's biggest draw by far was Law & Order:SVU at 10 p.m., which won the time period with a 5.5/15.
CBS was fourth with a 3.0/8. Somewhat surprisingly, It's top show, Navy NCIS at a 3.1/8 in 18-49's, was up against American Idol, likely skimming off some of those 49's for the older-skewing counterprogramming to the pop sing-off.
The WB was fifth with a 2.1/5 for Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill, while UPN was sixth with a 1/2 for all of Us, Eve, and Veronica Mars.
