• by Wayne Friedman , February 4, 2008

A big on-air marketing campaign, coupled with pent-up demand for original scripted shows, helped "Lost." In its fourth season premiere, the drama posted its best number in over a year. It also gave ABC a win for the first night of the February sweep.

The two-hour 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. "Lost" season debut dominated Thursday night with a Nielsen 6.7 rating/17 share among 18-49 viewers, and was up 16% versus its 2007 season three finale. That's its best showing since its November 2006 finale. It was also up 5% versus its last 'spring' debut on February 7, 2007.

On the back of "Lost," ABC launched new series "Eli Stone," which took a modest 63% of the "Lost" audience--earning a 4.0/11 and winning the 10 p.m. time slot. ABC won the night with a 5.3 rating/14 share.

All this took a toll on NBC--which had a nice run over the last several Thursdays in the top spot with "Celebrity Apprentice." The first part of a special two-hour show dropped "Apprentice" to a 2.8 rating from a 3.7 the week before during its 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. time slot. Once "Lost" was out of the way, it moved up to a 3.6 rating, coming in second place to "Stone." Overall, "Apprentice" earned a 3.2/8.

It was Fox, not NBC, that managed a nice second-place win on Thursday, with a 3.2/8. Its stable reality/game shows performed well: "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" got to a 3.1/8, while "Don't Forget the Lyrics" drew a 3.3/8.

Considering the competition, CBS went into repeat mode, but didn't suffer too much--a 1.9/5 for a "CSI: NY," a 2.7/7 for "CSI," and a 2.3/6 for "Without a Trace."

NBC came in third for the night with a 2.8/7. CBS was fourth at 2.3/6, Univision was fifth at 1.6/4, CW was at 1.4/4, and MyNetworkTV posted a 0.5/1.