“Law & Order: SVU” continues to perform in Season 15

To quote the late singer Aaliyah, “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.”

But to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, putting up fantastic numbers at its age 15 is a huge feat.

According to Wednesday night numbers released by Nielsen, the special two-hour premiere of SVU earned a 2.7 rating among adults 18-49, up 29 percent from the 14th season premiere. SVU finished only behind Modern Family in its first hour and won its time period in the second hour. For a drama in its mid-teens to show year-ago increases is quite impressive.

This good news on a night when each of the big four networks had something to crow about.

Emmy Award-winning sitcom Modern Family was the night’s most watched show with 11.68 million viewers and a 4.2 rating, easily beating CBS’ Criminal Minds in the demo, with a 2.8 rating. But in total viewers, Minds was very close with 11.27 million of them. Worth noting is Modern was down 25 percent from its premiere last season.

In the first hour, ABC’s The Middle started its fifth season with a 2.5 rating, with new James Caan sitcom Back In The Game getting decent sampling with a 2.2. Next was CBS’ Survivor, with a potent 2.4. So much for the theory of return of Colton alienating viewers – his presence hasn’t had an effect on the ratings one way or the other…and neither has the return of Redemption Island.

Fox’s two-hour X Factor (2.5) also had a nice outing, scoring a 14 percent week-to-week increase. For a short time, X Factor was the top trend on Twitter Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, NBC earned a 1.8 rating with relocated Revolution. While it was down considerably from the 4.1 the premiere earned on September 25, 2012 at 9 p.m. (CT), Revolution was up in the ratings from the failed sitcom block NBC aired last year, and was down slightly from June 3’s finale. Yours truly still thinks this time period move is a mistake.

Both CSI and Nashville trailed SVU in the final hour of primetime with a 2.0 rating each, with the season premiere of South Park trailing with a 1.8, with a huge 2.6 among adults 18-34, ranking second for the night across all platforms. In all honesty, South Park should also get some props as it entered its seventeenth season still drawing strong numbers.