NBC wasted no time kicking off the New Year in primetime. The network ran a full lineup of new broadcasts last night with double-digit jumps across the board. Whitney (1.8/5) started the night with its highest rating since its Wednesday debut almost a year ago. The sitcom was up 29% from its last original December 12. A new Guys With Kids (1.7/5) followed, up 21% from its last new show December 5, a time slot 18-49 demo high for the series. After that was Law & Order: SVU (2.1/5): The procedural was up a solid 31% from its last original almost a month ago and tied its highest rating since November 30, 2011. Capping off the night for NBC was Chicago Fire (2.4/6), up 26% from its last original episode December 19. That’s a season high for the freshman drama, beating its previous November 7 record. Chicago Fire also had a viewership high of 8.41 million Wednesday, besting its previous record of 7.2 million on December 5. With an audience of 6.942 million, NBC won the night in total viewers and adults 18-49.

Fox also had new programming with back-to-back episodes of Mobbed at 8 PM (1.0/3) and 9 PM (1.1/3). The return of the Howie Mandel-hosted hidden camera and flash mob-themed reality series fell hard from the 3.0 rating its last original episode garnered on February 8, 2012. Of course, back then Mobbed had American Idol as a lead-in, which was not the case last night.

CBS ran all encores Wednesday with Mike & Molly (1.3/4) at 8 PM and another (1.6/4) at 8:30 PM followed by Criminal Minds (1.6/4) and CSI (1.3/4). ABC was mainly repeats with The Middle (1.8/5), The Neighbors (1.3/3), Modern Family (2.1/5) and Suburgatory (1.3/5). The network ended its Wednesday primetime with a special recap broadcast of Nashville (1.1/3) to bring viewers up to date on the first eight episodes of the country drama. The CW ran repeats of Arrow (0.5/1) and Supernatural (0.4/1).

Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.