We all knew Idol was coming back to reclaim the number one spot. But I'm not sure any of us knew just how big the return was going to be. The kick off to the new season of the show averaged 37 million viewers. That is a premiere record for the series. What's even more impressive is that the audience grew throughout the night, going from 31 million up to 41 million.

That's all well and good, and something that Fox surely needed. But in the shadow of those huge Idol numbers, there is another little gem. While ABC dodged the behemoth with 4 episodes of America's Funniest Videos and NBC hid behind Dateline and an SVU repeat, CBS went head to head with Fox, showing new episodes of NCIS and The Unit. The two averaged roughly 16 million and 12 million viewers respectively. That is, of course, dwarfed by the Idol performance, but also very close to the performance of both shows when not facing Idol. It's a good sign for CBS.

[ thanks Ben ]