Runway Ratings Kind of a Big Deal

Fashion forward finale garners best numbers to date; "American Idol" easily wins the week

These are fierce times for fierce.

Last week's season finale of Project Runway, featuring the crowning of fierce-dropping designer Christian Siriano, helped push the show to its all-time best numbers.

For the season, Bravo said, the series averaged 3.8 million viewers compared to the 3.7 million who turned out for 2006's Laura vs. Jeffrey intrigue.

The Fashion Week-set finale, guest-starring celebrity judge Victoria Beckham, also recorded an all-time network high for 18- to 49-year-olds.

Still, the show, Siriano and his penchant for a certain adjective couldn't entirely overcome TV's peskiest problem, the disappearing audience.

The '06 finale, in which Jeffrey Sebelia finally cut Laura Bennett down to size, actually averaged more viewers, 5.4 million compared to last week's 5.2 million.

Bravo wasn't complaining. Only a Saturday night college basketball game on ESPN delivered more prime-time viewers last week in all of cable.

Fierce wasn't complaining, either. The word has at least two more entries in the Urban Dictionary since the 22-year-old from Maryland began making it work. A lot.

Here are other ratings highlights from the TV week ended Sunday:

• The American Idol women (second place, 28.3 million for Wednesday's episode) just about caught the American Idol men (first place, 28.5 million for Tuesday's episode), and not a moment too soon. The desegregated finals are about to begin.
• Fox's The Moment of Truth (fourth place, 14.7 million) got back its mojo, also known as the time slot after Wednesday's Idol.
• So goes the season, so goes Fox's new detective series, New Amsterdam. The first episode, aired after Tuesday's Idol, was pretty big (sixth place, 13.5 million). The second episode, aired after Thursday's Idol, was okay (15th place, 10.1 million). Monday's episode, aired after the premiere of Canterbury's Law (don't ask), averaged fewer than 9 million, per estimates. That's a decline of about 35 percent from first episode to third episode. Go ask Bionic Woman or Sarah Connor, we think they'll know the feeling.
• The aforementioned Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles closed out its season with back-to-back episodes that placed 35th and 33rd, respectively, and combined to average 8.1 million viewers, about 55 percent off from the Fox series' playoff-football-inflated premiere.
• Oprah Winfrey knows of shrinkage, too. Her new ABC reality show, Oprah's Big Give (10th place, 11.9 million), was off nearly 25 percent from its premiere only one week ago.
• Omarosa is nothing if not good for business. The professional irritant's dismissal from The Celebrity Apprentice (25th place, 8.8 million) nudged the NBC show up 15 percent from the previous week.
• CBS apparently was excited that a week's worth of DVR playback tacked on 1 million viewers to Jericho's underwhelming season premiere last month. The mark up, however, is actually pretty standard for a scripted series--even ABC's going-nowhere Cashmere Mafia added about 1 million viewers over the same period.
• The latest ratings for Jericho, by the way, were even more underwhelming (62nd place, 5.7 million). Give them about a week, though. 
• In cable, Nick's Zoey 101 (3.8 million) was the top scripted series, not including pro wrestling; the season premiere of FX's Dirt (1.4 million) wasn't.
• America's Election Headquarters, as modestly proclaimed by Fox News, was outdrawn by 27 installments of Nick's Spongebob SquarePants, as well as CNN's own coverage of the Ohio and Texas primaries (4.4 million for its most watched hour, versus 3.5 million for Fox's).
• TLC's Little People, Big World (3.5 million), MTV's America's Best Dance Crew (3.2 million), and the premiere of History Channel's logging-minded Ax Men (3 million) all did pretty well for shows without talking sponges.
• The series finale of HBO's The Wire averaged 1.1 million TV critics, sorry, TV viewers, the Baltimore Sun reported, a marked improvement for a show that had fallen under the seven-figure mark this season. 
• In the latest daytime ratings, CBS' Young and the Restless logged its 1000th week at No. 1. Its run extends all the way back to when people actually watched soap operas. 

In the network races, Fox won the week in total viewers (averaging 12.1 million), 18- to 49-year-olds and assorted David Archuletta devotees, but still felt sufficiently anxious to release a white paper on how Daylight Savings Time adversely effects prime-time viewing in general, and the launch of new drama series on Monday nights in particular.

CBS (8.1 million), NBC (7.5 million) and ABC (7.3 million) presumably would like to blame solar flares for their wan performances. The CW (2.3 million), sadly, just can't seem to shake global warming. 

In cable, USA (2.6 million) was the top prime-time network, followed by TNT (2.1 million) and Disney (2.06 million).

Here's a look at the 10 most watched broadcast network prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 28.5 million viewers
2. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 28.3 million viewers
3. American Idol (Thursday), Fox, 26.5 million viewers
4. The Moment of Truth, Fox, 14.7 million viewers
5. 20/20: The Royal Family, ABC, 14.1 million viewers
6. New Amsterdam (Tuesday), Fox, 13.5 million viewers
7. Lost, ABC, 13 million viewers
8. Survivor: Micronesia, CBS, 12.6 million viewers
9. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, ABC, 12.4 million viewers
10. Oprah's Big Give, ABC, 11.9 million viewers