An off-night for American Idol is still a big night. Just ask Dancing with the Stars.
The Fox singing show cramped the style of the ABC ballroom show in head-to-toe competition from 9-10 p.m. Tuesday, averaging 26.8 million viewers to Dancing's 15.2 million, per Nielsen estimates.
Overall, Idol, featuring its 11 remaining performers largely doing untoward things to the Beatles songbook, was easily the night's most-watched show, averaging 27 million from 8-10 p.m.
Dancing, which aired the first moves of its female contestants from 9-10:30 p.m., was easily the night's second most-watched show, averaging a still-strong 16.8 million. The series perked up to its usual self after Idol went off, averaging 20 million viewers from 10-10:30 p.m.
One need only look to Monday night's Dancing numbers, however, to see the damage done to Tuesday's show by Idol. On Monday, Dancing managed nearly 21 million for an evening of mangled moves by its male competitors.
Still, Idol didn't exactly come away unscathed from its first showdown of the season with Dancing.
Tuesday's Idol was off about 2 million viewers from last week's show, which aired opposite nothing more potent than a NCIS rerun. It's hard to tell, though, if Dancing drained Idol's viewers, or if Kristy Lee Cook's latest performance did.
Idol's least-watched half hour was actually its first half hour, from 8-8:30 p.m., before Dancing came on the air (but not before Cook was done having her way with "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away").
Next week, Idol and Dancing will start to get out of each other's way, matching up for only 30 minutes.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Miss/Guided, ABC's new Ashton Kutcher-hatched series, actually did okay for a comedy series, circa 2008. Its debut averaged 10 million viewers, enough to win its time slot opposite the final half hours of CBS' Jericho and NBC's Law & Order: SVU.