• by Wayne Friedman , October 9, 2006

For the big-staging ground of Thursday night, ABC beat out CBS for the third week in a row. But the race is getting closer.

ABC won by 5 percent as its lineup lead, by "Grey's Anatomy," remained a big draw. The most promising news for ABC was that "Ugly Betty" at 8 p.m. grew in its second half-hour from the first.

To proponents of the show, that's a good sign that viewers are hanging around; to detractors it says viewers are just tuning in early to watch "Anatomy." ABC is crowing, now that more younger viewers--adults 18-34--are watching "Betty" versus CBS' "Survivor: Cook Islands."

"Anatomy" again commanded major attention from viewers with a super-strong 9.4/23, which beat out competitor "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation"'s 7.3/18.

On the flip side, ABC's 10 p.m. show, "Six Degrees," took it on the chin--coming in third with a 3.6/10 rating behind NBC's "E.R." (a 6.1/17) and CBS' "Shark" (a 3.8/10). "Six Degrees" also lost a whopping 62 percent of the "Anatomy" lead-in.

ABC won the night with a 5.9/16. CBS had a 5.6/15. Farther down was NBC at a 4.5/12, as its comedies "My Name is Earl" and "The Office" continue to fight against big competition. "Earl" posted a 4.1/12; "Office" inked a 4.1/11.

CBS' "Survivor: Cook Islands" won the 8 p.m. time slot with a 5.6/16. Its rookie drama "Shark" took in a 3.8/10, coming in at second place for the evening, but it lost virtually half of its "CSI" 7.3 lead-in rating in the process.

Fox continued to suffer with is baseball divisional series--although it had two marquee and storied West Coast and East Coast teams facing each other: the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets. Fox could only muster 1.9/5 numbers among adult 18-49 viewers for the night, barely beating the CW's 1.8/5.