NEW YORK (AP) - An estimated 23.6 million viewers tuned in Thursday to watch Connie Chung's long-awaited interview with Congressman Gary Condit, according to Nielsen Media Research.

ABC's ``Primetime Thursday'' drew a 17.0 rating and 29 share nationally, Nielsen said. It was about on par with what ABC and other experts expected.

By contrast, Barbara Walters' interview with Monica Lewinsky in March 1999 drew 48 million viewers. The Condit interview was about half that, both because it didn't involve a president and because it was in the slow summer viewing season, experts said.

The 29 share that Nielsen reported meant that fewer than one-third of the televisions turned on at the time of the interview Thursday night were tuned in to Condit.

The occasionally testy interview was like a televised fencing match that ended with no blood drawn.

Condit, who agreed to the interview and largely set the ground rules, did little to shed light on his role in the investigation into Chandra Levy's disappearance. He left the ABC correspondent clearly exasperated.

``He was determined to say what he wanted and no more,'' Chung said at the conclusion of ABC's ``Prime Time Thursday.''

Chung's reviews in Friday's newspapers were far better than Condit's.

``Chung won,'' wrote television critic Tom Shales in The Washington Post. ``Condit definitely looked worse, largely because he came off as maddeningly elusive and slippery.''

USA Today's Robert Bianco said Chung ``came on surprisingly strong.

``She asked tough questions on almost all the pertinent topics, and she confronted Condit when he was evasive,'' Bianco wrote. ``But thanks to the tightly constrained format, he was able to wait her out on questions he didn't want to answer.''

While there's no reason to believe another interviewer would have knocked Condit off script, the New York Daily News' Eric Mink said Chung could have asked better questions.

``Whether fumbling the details of Condit's disposal of a watch box, lacking preparation on a legal document she tried to use or simply being unable to quickly shift gears on the fly, Chung did little more last night than let Condit have his say,'' Mink wrote.

The interview was the most eagerly anticipated TV spectacle of the summer, and television journalism's most sought-after interview since Lewinsky. The seven-term California Democrat, who has been a spectral presence on television screens for months, would finally be heard from.

What viewers got was an elliptical journey as Chung tried, to no avail, to pin down Condit's relationship with the missing intern. Condit uttered Clinton-like statements that he made mistakes in his marriage, but said he wouldn't say more about the relationship at the request of the Levy family.

His determination to stay on script cost Chung valuable time, particularly in fruitless attempts to find out about the watch box that Condit had discarded and why Condit would not take the independent lie-detector test requested by police.

Fortunately, Chung got some of the basic questions out of the way fast: ``Do you know what happened to Chandra Levy?'' and ``Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?'' He answered no to both questions.

Chung researched a Condit quote calling on former President Clinton to reveal details of the Lewinsky affair and sharply threw it back at Condit. His immediate attempts to filibuster foreshadowed the rest of the interview.

Since Condit would agree to talk for only 30 minutes, it left Chung with little time to probe his thoughts on his political career and his behavior as the investigation dragged on.

Ultimately, the one question a viewer wanted Chung to ask Condit was simply, ``Why are you here?''