ABC's Commander in Chief added viewers for its second outing, although the network placed second for Tuesday night in terms of total viewers.

The political drama averaged 16.6m viewers, handily winning its 9pm timeslot and adding 400,000 viewers compared to last week. CBS came in second with The Amazing Race posting 11.4m viewers for the hour. Also at 9, NBC averaged 10.6m viewers - again, the average was brought down by The Office's 8.2m viewers in the second half-hour compared to My Name Is Earl's 12.9m in the first.

The evening kicked off at 8pm with NCIS on CBS drawing 16.3m, well up from last week's 14.6m figure and a series high. The Biggest Loser on NBC had 8.3m viewers, up from last week's numbers. Of course, neither show had the usual competition from Fox, which was airing live baseball coverage between 8 and 11pm.

At 10pm, Law and Order: SVU comprehensively won the timeslot with 15.7m viewers. ABC's Boston Legal placed second with just under 12m viewers. CBS slipped to third place with Judging Amy-replacement Close to Home drawing 10.4m viewers.