Ratings: 'Grey's Anatomy' scores its biggest audience in weeks
Nov 21, 2008, 04:02 PM | by Mandi Bierly
Categories: Television, TV Biz, TV Ratings
CBS' CSI is still the No. 1 show on Thursday, but ABC has something to smile about: Last night, Grey's Anatomy scored its biggest audience since its season premiere, according to overnight data. The Ghost of Denny helped the drama nab 15.7 million viewers (up 6 percent from last week). Meanwhile, the Alphabet's Ugly Betty, second place in the 8 p.m. hour, held steady with its 8.3 million viewers. And Life on Mars...okay, it finished third in its 10 p.m. time slot with 8 million viewers and lost nearly half of its Grey's audience, but its fan base was also steady week-to-week. (Spin, baby, spin.)
Like CSI, whose 18.4 million viewers was down from last week's 19 million, the rest of CBS' lineup also saw a dip. Survivor: Gabon's was slight: Its 12.6 mil was down 2 percent from its last episode (though the reality show still took the 8 p.m. title by more than 4 million pairs of eyes). Freshman drama Eleventh Hour claimed the 10 p.m. crown with 10.7 million viewers, but it was down 8 percent week-to-week.
As for NBC, ER remained its top-rated Thursday show with 9.1 million viewers -- good enough for second place in the 10 p.m. slot -- but that was down 8 percent from last week's Anthony-Edwards-returns! episode. The remainder of the Peacock's night was a bit like a seesaw: My Name Is Earl went down (6.8 mil at 8 p.m.), Kath & Kim (5.5 mil at 8:30 p.m.) and The Office (8.4 mil at 9 p.m) went up, and 30 Rock went down (7.3 mil at 9:30 p.m.).
Over at Fox, the two-hour Kitchen Nightmares block was cookin' -- on low heat. Its 8 p.m. hour (4.7 mil) was status quo with last week's, but its 9 p.m. hour (4.2 mil) cooled off by about 14 percent in comparison.
Finally, we get to The CW, which, if these preliminary numbers hold up, scored nicely with Smallville (4.8 mil) and Supernatural (4 mil). We use the caveat because last week's fast ratings, 4.4 mil and 3.9 mil, dropped to 3.6 mil and 2.9 mil, respectively, when Nielsen released its final numbers.
More TV News:
Grey's Anatomy recap
Survivor: Gabon recap
Jeff Probst's latest EW Survivor blog
The Office recap
30 Rock recap
Life on Mars recap
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