• by Wayne Friedman , October 17, 2013

Grabbing another Walt Disney entertainment asset, ABC benefited on Wednesday night from a “Toy Story” Halloween TV special.

“Toy Story of Terror!”, a half-hour animated effort riffing off the Walt Disney movie franchise, posted a strong Nielsen preliminary 3.0 rating/9 share at 8 p.m. --- giving ABC comedy “The Middle” a break on the night. (ABC has also been scoring well with new series “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”)

A better early-evening start helped lift ABC’s “Modern Family,” the Wednesday night leader, to slightly better results -- a 4.0/11. All this helped improve ABC overall for Wednesday. ABC took in a 2.4/7 overall among 18-49 viewers on Wednesday, versus a 2.3/7 the week before -- tying for first place with Fox and CBS, which had the same numbers.

Fox and CBS were also up a bit from the week before. Fox's lone prime-time program featured Major League Baseball’s League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers, getting to a 2.4/7. That's about the same as the last game it aired between the two teams on Sunday. It was also up a full rating point versus the same playoff game a year ago. Fox grew two-tenths of a rating point versus the week before among 18-49 viewers.

CBS fared well against the special competition -- either at the same viewership level or higher versus a week before for its shows: “Survivor” at 2.5/7; “Criminal Minds” a 2.7/7; and “CSI” a 2.0/6. CBS was at a 2.4/7 for the night versus a 2.3/7 the week before in preliminary results.

NBC, Univision and CW were virtually identical to their preliminary Wednesday night numbers a week ago: a 1.4/4, a 1.2/4; and a 0.9/3, respectively.

NBC’s “Revolution” was pushed to a series-low 1.4/4; “Law And Order: SVU” was up a bit to a 1.7/5, and “Ironside” continued to struggle at a 1.1/3 -- similar to its results of a week ago.

A mixed bag for CW shows arrived for the night: “Arrow” rocketed up over 20% to a 1.1/3; but new show “The Tomorrow People” lost over 10% to a 0.8/2 .