Fox's decision to reject Wednesday night's presidential press conference — instead sticking with its regularly scheduled "Lie To Me" — appears to have paid off.
Fox won the 8PM hour, when "Lie To Me" went up against the press conference, with an average of 7.88 million viewers. That's more than any one network drew for the press conference, though together NBC (6.68 million), ABC (6.12 million), and CBS (6.01 million) combined for almost 19 million viewers.
Fox would, of course, go on to win Wednesday night on the strength of "American Idol" (21.85 million viewers), averaging 14.86 million total viewers for the night.
On cable, Fox News won the press conference (8-9PM) among total viewers with an average of 2.626 million viewers. CNN came in second with 2.176 million viewers and MSNBC placed third with 1.780 million viewers.
For all of primetime (8-11PM), Fox News averaged 2.862 million vewers, CNN averaged 1.640 million viewers, and MSNBC averaged 1.393 million viewers.
In the Adults 25-54 demographic — where CNN came in fourth for the month of April — CNN beat Fox News and MSNBC for the press conference (8-9PM). CNN averaged 738,000 A25-54 viewers compared to Fox News' 732,000 and MSNBC's 487,000. In all of primetime, Fox News won the demo with 801,000 A25-54 viewers. CNN averaged 518,000 A25-54 viewers and MSNBC came in third with 394,000 A25-54 viewers.