FOX’s “American Idol-Tuesday” and “Fringe” were the number one and number three-ranked primetime telecasts on broadcast TV Tuesday, January 20, 2009 with approximately 22.8 and 12.0 million average viewers.
On a historic day for our nation, ABC’s “Neighborhood Ball-1/20 Special” was ranked
second with 12.6 million average viewers Tuesday evening.

Rank
Program
Network
Viewers (P2+)

1
AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY
FOX
22,773,000

2
NEIGHBORHOOD BALL-1/20(S)-01/20/2009
ABC
12,573,000

3
FRINGE
FOX
11,962,000

4
NCIS
CBS
11,733,000

5
MENTALIST, THE-10PM SP(S)-01/20/2009
CBS
10,584,000

6
BIGGEST LOSER 7
NBC
10,266,000

7
ABC NEWS SPECIAL-1/20(S)-01/20/2009
ABC
9,483,000

8
CHANGE & CHALLENGE: OBAMA(S)-01/20/2009
CBS
6,762,000

9
NBC NEWS SPECIL:INAUGURTN(S)-01/20/2009
NBC
6,214,000

10
FUEGO EN LA SANGRE TUE
UNI
5,385,000

Source: The Nielsen Company (January 20, 2009).

Overall, FOX won the night with an average audience of almost 17.5 million viewers,
while ABC took second place with almost …