The interview, by Terry Moran, will be shown Tuesday on an hour-long edition of "Nightline".
Strictly has its first live show of the series tonight, with an hour-long edition featuring half the couples.
Four years ago "Idol," with just an hour-long edition at 8 p.m. Eastern, reached 27 million viewers compared with 16.1 million for that night of the Olympics.
Inspector George Gently came close to being the most-watched programme of the day, but lost out to an hour-long edition of ITV1's Coronation Street (7pm: 6.3 milllion/29.1%).
On Wednesday Mr. Obama was the subject of an hour-long edition of "Anderson Cooper 360″ and on Thursday he is the guest for the hour on "Larry King Live".
As well as Sherlock, the bespectacled wizard found himself up against an hour-long edition of EastEnders on BBC1, watched by 7.3 million viewers (27.8%) between 8pm and 9pm.
The season finale, an hour-long edition Wednesday night, set new records for the series, scoring a best-in-television 3 rating from 10 to 11 p.m., among the advertiser-preferred audience group of viewers between the ages of 18 and 49.
The reason the show didn't get there earlier in the evening was largely due to the return of the comedy "The Big Bang Theory" on CBS, which, in a special hour-long edition, scored a 4.9 rating in the 18-49 measure, with 14.3 million viewers.
Radio 2 will air a special hour-long edition of Sunday Half Hour from a vigil in Hyde Park, while Radio 5 Live will have "extensive" coverage led by Shelagh Fogarty and including live broadcasts of the Pope's arrival in Edinburgh on 16 September and of his first mass the same day during 5 Live Drive.
Coronation Street, ITV1, 8pm – the live hour-long edition of the ITV1 soap to mark its 50th birthday averaged 14.027 million viewers, a 52.1% share of the audience, between 8pm and 9pm, of whom 631,000 were watching on ITV1 HD.
TED HUGHES was the most important English poet of the post-war era, and in celebration of his achievements, his publishers have produced the longest edition of collected poems in living memory.
