‘Empire’ Viewership Hits High, ‘Mentalist’ & ‘Idol’ Down, ‘The 100′ Rises

There was more drama, more Mommy issues, more Naomi Campbell and more lack of brotherly love on Empire (4.3/12) last night. All of which meant there were a lot of eyeballs on the Lee Daniels and Danny Strong-created freshman hit. Not only was Empire almost right on the money of last week’s demo high with just a 2% dip, but it actually hit a viewership high with 11.3 million tuning in. That made it the most watched show of the night with a 4% rise over last week. Among total viewers, that’s the third week of growth in a row for the Fox show and the first time it has topped Idol in total viewers.

Having said that, similar to last week, Empire was facing a somewhat sparse battlefield with ABC and NBC both in repeats in the 9 PM time slot – as they were all of Wednesday’s primetime. The only other original in the slot was CBS’ Criminal Minds (2.1/6), which was also steady with a 5% rise in the demo over its January 21 airing.

Earlier on Fox, things were not so golden for American Idol (2.9/9). The vet singing competition show was down 14% from last week’s final number and 12% fast national to fast national. Idol was also down in viewership to 11.00 million from last week’s 11.76. It’s worth noting that Empire’s build on Idol’s demo result was 54%, the best the emerging blockbuster has done so far this season. All of which is to say that Fox won the night among the 18-49s with a 3.6/11 and total viewers with 11.16 million watching.

Over at the CW, Arrow (1.1/3) was even with last week while The 100 (0.6/2) saw a rise of 20%.

CBS’ other originals of the night were winding down The Mentalist (1.3/4) and newbie Stalker (1.6/5). The latter was down 13% from last week while the former bopped up 7%.

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