• by Wayne Friedman , October 29, 2007

You could feel the tussle over the TV remote between men and women on Thursday night.

ABC's women-targeted "Grey's Anatomy" seems to have won the battle; but Fox's male-oriented baseball playoff game looks to win this Thursday night war.

ABC's "Grey's" pulled a Nielsen preliminary 7.4 rating/15 share--on par with its recent ratings--the best-rated programming of the night. The close Red Sox-Rockies game pulled a 5.1 rating/14 share, down a bit from its numbers in game one, but still higher than last year's second World Series game.

While Fox was behind ABC "Grey's," the two-and-a-half-hour-long game was tops in the other parts of prime time. Fox won the night--just ahead of ABC--with a 4.8/14 to ABC's 4.6/10.

ABC mostly kept its audience against the big Fox event--only down two share points from the week before. Ratings for "Ugly Betty" and "Big Shots" were in line with its numbers versus a week ago.

In the face of heavy male-oriented programming from Fox, CBS took its high male-viewer "CSI" out of harm's way, offering a rerun. On a positive note, "Without a Trace" was a full rating point better than the disastrous "Viva Laughlin" debut a week ago. "Trace" put up a 3.3/12. CBS was able to pull out a third-place win with 3.9/12.

NBC's comedies had a better night this Thursday--"My Name Is Earl" grew to a 3.6/10 from a 2.7/8 of a week ago; "30 Rock" also showed gains, with a 3.1/8 from a 2.6/7. NBC's best performer of Thursday--"The Office" at 9 p.m.--put up a comparable 4.7/11.

But all this didn't do much for the season debut of "Scrubs," which earned a less-than-stellar 3.8/9. NBC had a 3.8/11 for the night. CW's "Smallville" was down some at a 1.8/4, and "Supernatural" was up a bit at a 1.3/3. For the night, CW's 1.6/4 was just behind Univision's 1.7/4.