Overnight Ratings: CBS Scores

When Grey's Anatomy is new, ABC always wins the Thursday  night ratings race.  But, with another repeat of the hospital drama on the schedule, a new CSI helped CBS take the night  with a 5.3/15 share in the 18-49 demo and a 7.1/9 for CSI.  CBS' Survivor won the 8-9 p.m. time period with a 4.4/13.

Despite a drop in the ratings due to the repeat, ABC came in second for the night. In third place was Fox, its game show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader coming in 

level with last week

with a 3.6/11 in 8-9 p.m. The show scored an astronomic 11.2/26 in its debut, but that interest now appears to have been primarily the power of its lead-in: American Idol. After that performance, Fox extended the run in the plum post-Idol position for two episodes and then moved it to 8-9 p.m. to give

another show

a shot at the golden time period. That also puts the Mark Burnett contest up against another Mark Burnett contest, Survivor.
 NBC was fourth with a 2.3/7. Its top show was a repeat of The Office at 9 p.m at  2.8/8.

The CW averaged a 1/3 with repeats of Smallville and Supernatural.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.