• by Wayne Friedman , March 5, 2007

Fox went back to school to win Thursday night. The net went three for three with its "American Idol" and "Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"--making a strong claim that it was far smarter than any other network. It ran the pair three nights in a row.

"Smarter," the Mark Burnett-produced reality show, again tore through competition, this time on Thursday. ABC and CBS were smart as well--getting out of the way of Fox's new dynamic duo, running mostly a repeat schedule of "Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI."

The consolation prize went to CBS for the evening overall, coming in at second place with a 4.2/11 to Fox's crunching 9.9/24. The "CSI" repeat beat the "Grey's" repeat by a score of 4.4/10 to 4.0/9.

ABC came in third with a 2.9/7.5. The network also decided to sit on the sidelines at 8 p.m. with a repeat of "Ugly Betty." All this gave CBS' "Survivor: Fiji" room to operate more freely, posting a 5.0/13.

"Survivor" took a hit a bit down from its previous airing--but also dinged a bit of a special Thursday edition of "American Idol," which came in with a still healthy 10.5/26. This "Idol" show was down from the 12.2/30 on Tuesday and an 11.9/30 on Wednesday.

NBC was just behind ABC with a 2.8/7. Its best was "Scrubs" at 9 p.m. with a 3.3/8. NBC tried to stir more interest for "The Black Donnellys" with a repeat of Wednesday's show, earning a 2.3/6.