FEWER VIEWERS CHOOSE PEOPLE’S CHOICE SPECIAL

Ratings for Wednesday night’s People’s Choice Awards special on CBS plunged 15 percent among the key 18-49 age group, making it the lowest-rated telecast of the special since 2008, according to TVbytheNumbers.com. Nevertheless, the program was the most-watched of the night with 10.18 million viewers overall. There was good news for NBC, which begins its annual struggling period at this time of year with the departure of Sunday Night Football. The premiere of its new cop series, Chicago P.D. drew 8.56 million viewers and a 54-percent increase in the 18-49 audience. The network also saw significant boosts in the ratings for Revolution and Law & Order: SVU. CBS, however was the top-rated network of the night with an average of 8.9 million viewers versus 7.8 million for NBC. ABC was third with 5.95 million, followed by Fox with 2.9 million. Significantly, Spanish-language Univision came in ahead of Fox with 3.04 million viewers.