Saturday, May 23, 2026

Ratings: “American Idol” Beaten by New Show (Instinct), Old Show (NCIS Los Angeles), March Madness Basketball

Share

Week number 2 for “American Idol” on ABC wasn’t so great.

The singing competition was beaten in the ratings by a totally new show– “Instinct,” starring Alan Cumming. And it was also beaten by “NCIS Los Angeles” and March Madness NCAA basketball.

Whoops!

For Cumming, “Instinct” is an out of the box hit built on his popularity from “The Good Wife.” It also followed a hot “60 Minutes” — 10 million viewers on average who watched the great kids from Parkland, Florida and the eye opening Norah McDonell piece on Saudi Arabia. “Instinct” held 8 million or viewers through its hour.

CBS came into the evening at 7pm on a high with 12 million viewers finishing up NCAA Basketball. From there, they took the night.

Donate to Showbiz411.com

Showbiz411 is now in its 13th year of providing breaking and exclusive entertainment news. This is an independent site, unlike the many Hollywood trades that are owned by one company. To continue providing news that takes a fresh look at what's going on in movies, music, theater, etc, advertising is our basis. Reader donations would be greatly appreciated, too. They are just another facet of keeping fact based journalism alive.
Thank you


Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

Read more

In Other News