Idol Biggest of Smallest

American Idol won because it didn't lose.

In a season where viewers didn't live up to their job description, Wednesday's Idol grew ever-so slightly bigger, and finished the TV year as prime time's most watched series, per Nielsen Media Research stats.

The ascension of Wednesday's Idol meant a demotion for Tuesday's Idol. The reigning three-time champ fell to number two in the year-end rankings.

Aided by the Jordin Sparks-crowning finale, Wednesday's Idol averaged 30.02 viewers, up a tick over last year's 30.01 million.

Tuesday's Idol downsized from 31 million to 29.5 million.

Among last season's top 10 occupants, only Wednesday's Idol, Fox's House and ABC's Dancing with the Stars got bigger, not smaller.

Overall, CBS, ABC, NBC were down, Fox was slightly up, and the CW, which pooled the resources of the WB and UPN, managed to draw as many viewers as just one of the defunct brands—an entire network audience just disappeared from the books for reasons that are unclear. (Earlier than usual Daylight Savings Time? More than usual ennui? The brand-new Wii?)

Among top-rated series, CBS' CSI took the biggest hit, body-wise, losing 5.3 million crime watchers. Of course, a show that can lose 21 percent of its audience, and still be classified a top-rated series, is like the baseball pitcher who loses 20 games: Must be doing something right to be allowed to do so much wrong. As such, CSI averaged 19.8 million viewers (fourth place), and maintained its title as TV's most watched scripted series.

At least CSI's Nielsen woes were pretty easy to explain: ABC threw Grey's Anatomy (seventh place, 18.7 million) opposite it on Thursday nights. And if Grey's Anatomy was down, too (from 19.7 million), well, that's because it had to go up against CSI.

CBS' Without a Trace was another open-and-shut case. It was moved from Thursdays, where it drew 18.7 million viewers a season ago, to Sundays, where it was supposed to kill off Grey's replacement Brothers & Sisters, but only managed to stave off the freshman series, averaging 14.3 million viewers (down 24 percent) to the latter's 10.7 million, and falling out of the top 10.

But how to explain double-digit dips for CBS' The Unit (10.8 million, down 30 percent), ABC's Desperate Housewives (17 million, down 23 percent), NBC's Law & Order: SVU (27th place, down 15 percent), all of which returned to their time slots from the previous season?

And what about Fox's 24 (12.4 million, down 9 percent)? Was it the nukes? The Bush administration endorsement? Competition from NBC's Heroes (13.6 million), TV's most watched new show, which itself cooled following a lengthy spring vacation?

With all the viewer defections, ABC's Lost (13.8 million) no longer looked like a poster show for the hiatus-challenged serialized drama—it just looked like one of the club, down 10 percent, à la, CBS' CSI: Miami (16.5 million), which was down 9 percent, but suffered less than half the grief.

In a season of decline, the freaks were House (18.5 million, up 8 percent), CBS' Criminal Minds (13.6 million, up 8 percent) the retiring King of Queens (11.2 million, up a lucky 13 percent), NBC's Sunday Night Football (17 million, up 5 percent from the final ABC season of Monday Night Football) and Dancing with the Stars.

The latter's numbers are a little hard to crunch—it aired twice this season making comparisons to last season's one-and-done cycle less exact—but still easy to read: The show with the cheesy trophy and the elastic definition of "star" was consistently the biggest thing on TV not named American Idol.

In sheer amount of product, Dancing was actually bigger than Idol, accounting for 40 percent of the top 10. Last fall's competition, the one dominated by Emmitt Smith and Mario Lopez, outpolled this spring's Apolo Anton Ohno-led edition. The fall dance night, averaged 20.5 million (third place), followed by spring dance night (fifth place, 19.6 million), fall results night (sixth place, 19 million) and spring results night (ninth place, 18 million).

Simply put: Dancing with the Stars did a lot better than Fox's Celebrity Duets (5.8 million), which, on the upside, wasn't down from last season.

Of course, it didn't air last season. Here's a look at some of the other ratings highlights of the 2006-07 season, which concluded Wednesday night:

• James Woods was almost as hip as Heroes. His CBS legal show, Shark (13.2 million), was TV's second-most watched new series.
• Other standout freshmen: CBS' Rules of Engagement (12.1 million), the midseason replacement that aged Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Old Christine (10.2 million) terribly; ABC's Ugly Betty (11 million), which got a lot of ink, won a Golden Globe, but really earned its stripes by helping its network salvage Thursday night; and, Fox's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (12.5 million), which proved the answer, in many cases, was no.
• TV's most watched half-hour comedy, CBS' Two and a Half Men (14.2 million), made the Top 20. Which is about the best a half-hour comedy can hope for these days.
• Don't underestimate the power of pleasing blandness. With mild-mannered Andy Baldwin at the helm, ABC's Bachelor franchise (10.2 million) was a player again.
• NBC's ER (11 million) was the most watched elderly show, followed by the barely renewed Law & Order (8.7 million, down 22 percent) and Fox's unending The Simpsons (8.6 million).
• CBS' Close to Home (10 million) was the most watched cancellation victim, although the same network's Jericho (9.2 million) came close, and inspired even louder cries of foul (not to mention a few save-the-show efforts).
• In an upset, ABC's Notes from the Underbelly (5.39 million) was the least watched series to win a renewal from one of the big four networks, coming in just under NBC's 30 Rock (5.4 million). NBC's Scrubs (6.1 million) gave it its all, too, but just couldn't weed out enough of its fan base.
• Because Rosie O'Donnell looks like she could use a laugh: Donald Trump's The Apprentice (7.1 million) was down 26 percent from its previous edition.
• Fox's The O.C. (4 million) actually aired last season. It only seems like it didn't.
• The CW belatedly picked up the WB's Reba, and canceled it as soon as contractual obligations allowed. In between, the show went out, and averaged more viewers (3.5 million) than any other half-hour comedy on the fledgling network.
• WB survivors Gilmore Girls (3.6 million) and 7th Heaven (3.2 million) both looked gassed, but gave the CW two of its stronger performances.
• The CW's America's Next Top Model was the model of consistency, averaging 5.2 million viewers for each of its two runs.
• You know those five-night-a-week telenovela-styled soaps on MyNetworkTV? They started out small—1 million viewers for the Bo Derek-graced Fashion House, 902,000 viewers for Desire—and worked their way down from there—to, say, 660,000 viewers for the Casper Van Dien-graced Watch Over Me. That should help explain the switch over to Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith documentaries during May sweeps.

Overall, CBS retained its title as TV's most watched network, averaging 12.2 million viewers, to Fox's 10.2 million, ABC's 9.7 million and NBC's fun-sized 8.7 million.

Fox retained its title as TV's highest-rated network among young adults who still watch TV. CBS took second there, with ABC slipping to third, and NBC holding down the fort in fourth.

The CW averaged 3.12 million viewers, on par with the final seasons of the WB (3.11 million) and UPN (3.1 million).

Here's a rundown of the 10 most watched prime-time shows for the 2006-07 season, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 30 million viewers
2. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 29.5 million viewers
3. Dancing with the Stars (Tuesday dance show, fall 2006), ABC, 20.5 million viewers
4. CSI, CBS, 19.8 million viewers
5. Dancing with the Stars (Monday dance show, spring 2007), ABC, 19.6 million viewers
6. Dancing with the Stars (Wednesday results show, fall 2006), ABC, 19 million viewers
7. Grey's Anatomy, ABC, 18.7 million viewers
8. House, Fox, 18.5 million viewers
9. Dancing with the Stars (Tuesday results show, spring 2007), ABC, 18 million viewers
10. Desperate Housewives, ABC, 17 million viewers