Adam Carolla or no, Dancing with the Stars still has the moves.
The ABC ballroom competition kicked off its spring fling before, on average, 20.9 million on Monday night, according to Nielsen estimates.
The show dominated on what essentially was the start of the poststrike season. In addition to the all-new Dancing on ABC, CBS had two hours of all-new comedies, Fox had two hours of all-new dramas, and, Medium aside, NBC was its all-new reality-TV self.
Overall, Dancing's premiere was a tick below last fall's opener. The dip, about 2 percent, wasn't at all bad considering (a) double-digit declines are the norm this season, and (b) Penn Jillette "danced" about as well as Carolla.
Jillette and Carolla were among the six men of varying celebrity who showed off their footwork, such as it was, on Monday.
The starrier field of six women, led by Priscilla Presley, Oscar winner Marlee Matlin and Olympic champ Kristi Yamaguchi, are scheduled to strut their stuff on Tuesday's show.
Elsewhere on Monday, CBS's Two and a Half Men scored about 14 million viewers for its first new episode since November. The number is as good as it gets for a sitcom, but is hardly the sort of welcome one would imagine for an old friend who's been away for four months. The performance was up just 1 percent from the show's season average.
How I Met Your Mother's St. Patrick's Day-themed episode, its first original since December, was a bigger winner (9.8 million viewers), up 20 percent from its season average, while The New Adventures of Old Christine (11.5 million), which actually returned to work last week, was the biggest winner, up 23 percent.
The Big Bang Theory (9.1 million), which went dark in November, returned to post a modest 4 percent gain over its season average.
On the whole, the CBS comedies took second to Dancing from 8-9:30 p.m.
Fox and NBC were nonplayers, respectively, with Canterbury's Law (5.7 million) and My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad (4.7 million). And even NBC's usually strong Deal or No Deal got buried in its first half-hour, 9-9:30 p.m., when it averaged an unspectacular 8 million.
Fortunately for Howie Mandel, 9:30 p.m. arrived, Dancing ended, Two and a Half Men went off, and the latest season of The Bachelor began. Accordingly, the final half-hour of Deal or No Deal shot up to 11.9 million viewers, narrowly holding off the unusually perky Old Christine.
As for The Bachelor, its new British accent wasn't exactly a turnoff—the premiere was in the cricket grounds with last fall's, down just 3 percent, from 9.2 million to 8.9 million. But, per usual, the show couldn't keep Dancing's tens of millions from looking around to see if anything better was on.
Come next week, that search may well lead eyeballs to CBS, where David Caruso and his sunglasses are due back with an all-new CSI: Miami.
Monday night's numbers will be reflected in next week's Nielsen rankings. For now, here are the ratings highlights from the TV week ended Sunday:
- Lennon-McCartney night very nearly pushed Tuesday's American Idol back to the 30 million viewer mark (first place, 29.9 million).
- David Hernandez elimination night, as seen on Wednesday's Idol, in conjunction with the Katharine McPhee and Jim Carrey product placement seminars, was rather well-attended, too—second place, 27.1 million.
- ABC's Lost (fourth place, 12.1 million) isn't doing poorly, but it's only doing okay opposite zero competition, with apologies to Fox's Don't Forget the Lyrics (21st place, 8.7 million). What happens when it has to go up against a new CSI, instead of an old CSI (10th place, 11.2 million)?
- Fox's The Moment of Truth (11th place, 10.6 million) fell out of the top 10. Apparently, the game show forgot the cardinal rule of prime time: For best results, go on after Idol, not before.
- ABC's Oprah's Big Give (15th place, 9.7 million) is experiencing what is known as the big swoon.
- Fox's New Amsterdam (8.8 million, 20th place) was the lone new series in the top 20.
- Fox's Cops (57th place, 5.8 million for its first episode; 37th place, 7 million for its second episode) and America's Most Wanted (45th place, 6.5 million) were broadcast TV's standard-bearers on Saturday night, which says a lot about where broadcast TV is (and isn't) on Saturday night.
- ABC's October Road (73rd place, 4.7 million) happily made it to its second season finale, where it can now be canceled in peace.
- Oops. We forgot to watch NBC's Amnesia (81st place, 4.4 million). Again.
- You know how the final season of Gilmore Girls fell off in the ratings, if not the story, department? Well, it turns out that that ending was better than the beginning for Amy Sherman-Palladino's new Fox comedy, The Return of Jezebel James (97th place, 3.2 million for its first episode; 99th place, 3.1 million for its second).
- In cable, USA's pro wrestling ruled (averaging 5.6 million for two episodes of Raw), while Nick's iCarly (4.3 million) represented for the gangly tween.
- Alyssa Milano can still bring it. Her new Lifetime movie, Wisegal (3.3 million), was cable's biggest telepic.
- The Cutting Edge is the Slap Shot of figure-skating movies—it lives, however improbably. Its second made-for-cable sequel, The Cutting Edge 3: Chasing the Dream, scored 3.1 million viewers for ABC Family Channel. Even a Sunday afternoon outing for the 1992 original averaged 1.4 million.
- Bravo's Top Chef kicked off its Chicago season with about 11 percent more viewers than its Miami premiere (2.3 million versus 2 million).
The battle of the networks wasn't much of a fight. Fox had Idol, and, as a result, more total viewers (11.3 million, on average) and more 18- to 49-year-old viewers (5.4 million, on average) than everybody else.
Among the everybody elses, NBC, home of kid favorites such as Dateline NBC and Law & Order, proclaimed itself the "second-youngest" broadcast network, reminding just how old the broadcast network audience is.
In cable, USA (2.8 million) was the top prime-time network, followed by Disney (2.4 million) and TNT (2 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, 29.9 million viewers
2. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 27.1 million
3. Survivor: Micronesia, CBS, 13.2 million
4. Lost, ABC, 12.1 million
5. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, ABC, 12.05 million
6. Law & Order, NBC, 11.85 million
7. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 11.819 million
8. Deal or No Deal (Monday), NBC, 11.818 million
9. 60 Minutes, CBS, 11.3 million
10. CSI, CBS, 11.2 million