• by Wayne Friedman , October 23, 2006

The medical examiners on ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" can count up more casualties from CBS' "CSI."

ABC inflicted real pain on its rival by moving "Grey's" to Thursday night against "CSI," the No. 1 scripted show on CBS. "Grey's" continues to dominate--slightly improving over last week with a 9.6/23 among 18-49 viewers, versus the 6.9/16 number for "CSI," which fell from a 7.5/18.

The gap between the two shows is now almost three full ratings points. Still, CBS will point out that its total viewers' tally isn't so bad. "Grey's" only has a 1.6 million total viewer lead over "CSI--just a 7% gap. The difference between them in the 18-49 ratings is 28%. And the 18-49 "CSI" ratings are now the lowest in two and a half years.

But don't give ABC all the credit this particular Thursday. Fox's big seventh game of the League Championship Series put up a healthy 5.4/15 rating in 18-49--its biggest numbers of the playoff season.

All this gave another Thursday win to ABC, its fifth in a row. It averaged a 5.8 rating/15 share, just ahead of CBS' 5.5/14. Fox was third at 4.8/13. Then came NBC with a 4.2/11, the CW at 1.7/4, and Univision at 1.4/3.

Without "Grey's" big numbers, ABC wouldn't win the night. The network still has a 10 p.m. headache with its new show "Six Degrees," which keeps very little of "Grey's" leadout, earning a 3.5/9. It was down a tick from last week with a 3.6/10.

Good news for "Shark," CBS' new 10 p.m. drama. The show distanced itself from ABC's "Degrees." Now, "Shark" is up to a 4.2/11 among adult 18-49 viewers.

NBC had a difficult time competing for most of the evening--until it got to the 10 p.m. time period. The renewed strength of its long-time "E.R." with a 5.6/15--although down from the previous week's 6.1/16--still won the 10 p.m. hour, despite heavy competition from Fox's baseball playoff game.

During the 8 p.m. hour, the story has been much the same as the previous week: "Survivor: Cook Islands" won the day. ABC's "Ugly Betty" came in a solid, but distant, second. NBC's "My Name is Earl" slipped somewhat, down to a 3.6/10 from a 3.9/12 the week before. NBC's "The Office" held its ground with virtually the same number from a week ago: a 4.1/10 versus a 4.1/11.