IDOL: RATINGS DOWN AGAIN BUT STILL POTENT

American Idol continued to dominate Wednesday night’s ratings, even though its numbers remained significantly lower than they were a year ago. The first hour of the Fox talent show attracted 18.9 million viewers, while the second drew 19.4 million. The show did face some strong competition from the latest edition of Survivor (Survivor: One World), which premiered at 8:00 p.m. with 10.7 million viewers, up slightly from last fall’s season premiere of Survivor: South Pacific, which captured 10.4 million viewers. At 9:00, CBS’s Criminal Minds counted 11.9 million viewers slightly better than ABC’s Modern Family, which wound up with 11.2 million. NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams did no b