Overnight TV Ratings -- Everybody Wins!

American Idol won the 8 p.m. hour, but the Olympics scored a slightly higher audience for the night overall and everybody had something to crow about. Idol -- which eliminated four people who deserved to go -- scored 23 million viewers. (I'll never understand why the results show is lower rated than the performance show; to me, it always seems more inherently dramatic.) But the Olympics, with Cohen doing about as well as she could have hoped (given her long program, even without a fall she would have been lucky to silver), hit 24 million viewers. That's about the first time it's done substantially better than the Winter Olympics eight years ago. ABC's Dancing With The Stars drew a bigger and bigger audience as the night went on (odd, since NBC saved the American ice skaters for 9-11 p.m.), averaging 17.6 million viewers. (A 10 p.m. Primetime Live about the Natalee Holloway case scored 12 million viewers. And CBS -- where heads should roll for running repeats during most of the Olympics -- saw Survivor wilt a bit under the pressure of Idol and Dancing and the Olympics, hitting a decent 14.8 million viewers. If you're a ratings geek like me, sign up for daily emails about the overnight ratings at Mediaweek.