Thursday 12/22/11 - X Factor Crowns Fox the Winner

Growing 18% from Wednesday, Part 2 of The X Factor (3.14 A18-49 Live Rating) season finale drew the largest A18-49 audience of the evening, as the first season closed with Melanie Amaro becoming the first ever US X Factor Champion.

Despite rolling out a full lineup of repeats, CBS' schedule of The Big Bang Theory (2.42), Rules of Engagement (1.77), Person of Interest (1.57) and The Mentalist (1.43) still landed the network second with A18-49 among its broadcast competition and third overall for the evening.

Over on the cable landscape, the NFL Network hosted its sixth week of Thursday Night Football (1.53), featuring the matchup between the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts. Drawing the biggest A18-49 cable viewership of the evening, last night's game improved slightly from both last week's game between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars and from a year ago (Carolina Panthers vs. Pittsburgh Steelers).

Continuing to roll out holiday specials for the fifth consecutive week, ABC started off the evening with repeats of holiday specials, including Disney's Prep & Landing (1.02) at 8pm, Prep & Landing 2: Naughty vs. Nice (1.06) at 8:30pm and I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown (1.12) at 9pm. Following its holiday specials, the network closed the night with a repeat of Grey's Anatomy (0.71) at 10pm.

Over on NBC, Thursday's edition of Who's Still Standing? (1.40) at 8pm declined 13% among A18-49 viewers from Wednesday's airing, with the network scheduling repeats of The Office (0.80) and Whitney (0.71) during the 9pm hour. Closing the evening, the network's latest episode of Prime Suspect (0.80) improved 11% from a week ago, landing ahead of ABC in the hour with A18-49.

For the sixth consecutive week, The CW featured an all repeat Thursday night schedule, as its lineup of Vampire Diaries (XX) and The Secret Circle (XX) trailed significantly behind its broadcast competition.

Source: Nielsen, based on Live data