Buoyed in large part by Clay Aiken and his devoted fans, Jimmy Kimmel Live drew its largest weekly ratings in two years during the week of the North Carolina singer's visit.

Clay stopped by the show on Tuesday, October 26, as part of his whirlwind promotional tour for A Thousand Different Ways.

Thanks to George Lopez and Clay Aiken, that night's show gave Kimmel his second-highest ratings ever for a single telecast. The program was up a staggering 18 percent over the previous year's ratings for that week.

The October 26 Jimmy Kimmel Live audience, which numbered more than 2.34 million TV viewers (and hordes of eager fans who showed up in-person) ranked second only to the February 6, 2003 telecast when ABC aired a Michael Jackson special in primetime.

Clay's album sales may be falling short of expectations, but with fan devotion like this, you can't think that trend will last long.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.