Ratings: CBS strikes out baseball, hits another Thursday home run
Oct 24, 2008, 03:22 PM | by Aubry D’Arminio
Categories: Ratings, TV Biz, TV Ratings
According to preliminary data, CBS’ lineup of Survivor: Gabon (pictured) at 8 p.m., CSI at 9 p.m., and Eleventh Hour at 10 p.m. topped the Thursday ratings for a third straight week. All three series aced their time slots and showed slight gains from their previous outings, with Survivor netting 13.4 million total viewers, CSI scoring 19.2 million, and Eleventh Hour attracting 12.2 million. CSI also performed well above last season’s 16 million average, while freshman series Eleventh Hour snagged only slightly fewer fans than the 12.8 million that Without a Trace brought in during the same time slot last season.
All three shows even managed to best World Series game 2 on Fox (a feat CBS didn’t manage when up against game 1 on Wednesday). Only 11.7 million people tuned in to see the Phillies take on the Rays (compare that to the 17 million who watched game 2 of the Red Sox-Rockies showdown last year).
Most of NBC’s Thursday night comedy block suffered near imperceptible declines, with My Name Is Earl garnering 6.3 million viewers at 8 p.m., The Office taking in 7.7 million at 9 p.m., and the final primetime installment of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update attracting 8.5 million at 9:30. The network’s Kath & Kim took a harder blow at 8:30 p.m.: The new laugher dropped a million viewers from last week’s 6 million (a 17 percent decline). ER remained steady in the 10 p.m. slot, despite Maura Tierney’s departure, with 8.7 million viewers.
ABC’s 8 p.m. dramedy Ugly Betty benefited a bit from Lindsay Lohan’s return last night: 8.7 million tuned in, a mild improvement on last week’s 8.2 million and the show’s best ratings since its September premiere. Grey’s Anatomy (14.2 million) showed a slight decline in ABC’s 9 p.m. time slot. And more than 40 percent of those viewers checked out before 10 p.m.’s Life on Mars, which was down again with 8.1 million viewers. The rapturously reviewed U.K. import continues to trail Eleventh Hour on CBS (though it’s still rating high above Big Shots, the canceled Dylan McDermott series that aired during its time slot in Fall 2007).
Lastly, there’s only happy news to report over at the CW. Smallville garnered 4.2 million viewers at 8 p.m., an improvement on last week’s 4.1 million and last year’s 3.5 million average. And Supernatural attracted 3.3 million at 9 p.m., also topping its last new episode’s 3.1 million and previous season’s 2.5 million average.
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