'American Idol' numbers way down from last season, 'Criminal Minds' draws big

FOX's "American Idol" came back Wednesday night to expectedly high ratings leading FOX to victory, according to the Nielsen television ratings for Wednesday.

Related: VoteForTheWorst.com announces they'll shut down

FOX's juggernaut "American Idol" returned, and while even the show's biggest online nemesis is saying the show is on the way down, the show still pulled a 6.0 rating in the 18-49 year-old target audience, and 17.93 million viewers overall. That's down from last year's 7.4 rating for the premiere, but still an outstanding number and good for first place in ratings and total viewers.

ABC's second-place lineup was all new, with "The Middle" (2.3), "The Neighbors" (1.8), "Modern Family" (4.3), "Suburgatory" (2.3), and "Nashville" (2.2).

CBS ran an "NCIS" rerun (1.1) followed by new episodes of "Criminal Minds" (2.9 rating, 12.64 million viewers for the second-most watched show of the night) and "CSI" (2.3).

The CW's "Arrow" returned to new episodes with a 1.1 rating and 3.127 million viewers overall, followed by a new "Supernatural" (0.9). Arrow was up a tenth since its last new show back in December. The CW finished fourth on Wednesday.

NBC's last-place lineup was all reruns, with "Whitney" (0.8), "Guys With Kids" (0.8), "Law & Order: SVU" (0.6), and "Chiacgo Fire" (1.0).

-- Reid Kerr has given up on Idol. Follow him on Twitter and yell at him.