Sweet Jesus, Can't You Answer Our Speidi Prayer?

Wed., Jun. 3, 2009 9:30 AM PDT by Joal Ryan

Given Spencer and Heidi Pratt's increasingly hard-to-follow storyline, is it a wonder that I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! lost about 1 million viewers Tuesday from its premiere night—or that it didn't lose more?

Overall, I'm a Celebrity, which averaged 5.5 million viewers, per preliminary Nielsen estimates, got swamped in its time slot by an NCIS rerun (11.1 million), but tied the crime procedural for first among all-important adults 18-49.

The month-long reality series continues tonight, with the previously out-of-here Pratts in tow—provided NBC heeds the newlyweds' prayers to Jesus. (Oh, we could explain, but we'd rather eat jungle bugs. Just go read the tweets for yourself.)

Elsewhere on a night of belated season finales—and another early Conan O'Brien:

• Law & Order: SVU (11.3 million) dominated Tuesday as it closed the books on its 10th season. Sure, it's summer, and it didn't have much competition, but the series made the most of the open field. The finale was up 2 million viewers over its season average.

• At 9 p.m., an NBC News special on the Obama White House was outdrawn by a repeat of The Mentalist, 9.1 million viewers to 10.5 million. But the administration saved face by polling best among adults 18-49.

• O'Brien's second Tonight Show was, understandably, not as big as the first. But the performance was still big enough to rate as the late-night franchise's best Tuesday overnight performance in more than two years, NBC said.

• Given that O'Brien killed again, David Letterman got killed again. But his Late Show got less killed, and his overnight rating was actually up a bit from Monday.

• According to Jim concluded its eighth—and final—season in quiet dignity. Well, certainly in quiet: 4.1 millon viewers for back-to-back episodes.