• by Wayne Friedman , April 2, 2007

This time it was CBS that found a Thursday night programming seam--using originals versus the competition repeats--to grab a solid Thursday night win.

With ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and "Ugly Betty" on the sidelines in repeats, CBS, with originals of "Survivor: Fiji," "CSI" and "Shark" easily won the night.

Nielsen numbers for Thursday gave CBS a 5.3 rating/15 share; ABC, a 3.2/9; Fox, 2.8/8; NBC, 2.3/7; Univision, 1.7/5; CW, 1.0/3; and MyNetworkTV, a 0.6/2.

CBS hit the bell curve in the middle of the evening--peaking during the 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. hour. It started out with "Survivor: Fiji" getting a 4.5/14 among 18-49 viewers, then moved to 7.2/19 for "CSI," the highest-rated program of the night. At 10 p.m., "Shark" continued to earn solid numbers--a 4.1/12. All three shows won their time periods.

While ABC was in some repeats for the seasons, it did offer a new episode of its new drama "October Road" at 10 p.m., which earned a 3.5/10. Though down off its 4.9 and 5.8 numbers from previous weeks, it retained most of its demo lead-in from a repeat of "Grey's Anatomy," which took in a 3.6/10 in 18-49 viewers. "October" was second to "Shark" in most demos, but younger viewers ages 12-34 made it a winner in the time period, topping the CBS drama.

Fox's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader"--after some sky-high early round results--seemed to be settling into a groove in the mid-three rating range, with a 3.7/11. That was good enough to be second to "Survivor." After that, two reruns from "Family Guy"--with less than 2.0 rating--put Fox into third place for the night.

A virtual night of "The Office"--four episodes, except for an original episode of "Andy Barker, P.I." at 9:30, which got a 2.1/5--gave NBC a fourth-place spot overall for the evening.