Wednesday night was a victory not only for David Cook, but also for Fox, as almost 32 million viewers tuned in to watch the battle of the Davids.

The two-hour show marked the third most watched episode of the competition, after the 2006 battle between Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee, with 36.4 million viewers, and the 2003 showdown between Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken, with 38.1 million viewers.

The high ratings during the finale were quite a surprise, after the singing competition had lost some of the audience this season and the ratings were much lower than expected.

But it seems the battle between tween Archuleta and former bartender Cook was too attractive to resist.

After Tuesday’s performances, a record number of 97.5 million votes were cast for the two Davids, out of which 56 percent went to Cook.

Although Archuleta was expected to win the competition, after getting continuous praise from the judges on Tuesday night, the situation changed in the last moment and Cook was the victorious one. It seems America appreciated a rocking idol more than a 17-year-old who can only sing inspirational songs.

One possible reason behind the rocker’s victory is that Idol’s audience was older this year. According to Nielsen Media Research, the teenage viewers were replaced this year by people in their thirties or forties, with the median age of a show viewer being 42. About 11 percent of the viewers ages 18 to 49 were watching this year’s season.

Fox was the only network with no significant rating declines this season, therefore it beat the usually popular CBS, which lost 16% in ratings compared with last season.