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.
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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.