The ratings of the second episode of FOX's third season of American Idol might have been down significantly from Monday's first episode of the program's special three-night premiere week, but Idol was still far and away the most-watched program of the night.
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Airing at 8 PM ET on an evening which featured an abbreviated network programming schedule due to Preseident Bush's 9 PM ET broadcast of the State Of The Union Address, the second episode the FOX competition series brought in 28.6 million viewers and an 12.5 rating/32 share in the Adults 18-49 demographic, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research.
The performance was slightly lower than the 29 million viewers that tuned it for Monday's Idol premiere, and given Bush's 9 PM ET address and the network's 10 PM ET broadcasts of post-speech analysis and the Democratic response to Bush's address, the numbers were enough to make the show the most-watched program of the night by far.
American Idol's third season "premiere week" concludes Wednesday, January 21 at 8 PM ET. Next week the program will move into its regular Tuesdays 8:00-9:00 PM ET timeslot, with its usual Wednesdays 8:30-9:00 PM ET timeslot expanded to 8:00-9:00 PM ET as the program's regional auditions comclude.
Then, America will watch the 119 contestants chosen from around the nation continue their auditions in Hollywood on Tuesday, February 3 at 8:00-9:00 PM ET and discover who survived the judges to become semifinalists during the Wednesday, February 4 8:30-9:30 PM ET broadcast.
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