Prime-Time Metered Market Thursday Ratings: CBS Wins; ABC the Network to Beat Among Adults 18-49

-Honorable Mention:
Bones (Fox)

-Yesterday's Losers:
Community (NBC), Parks and Recreation (NBC), Fringe (Fox), The Jay Leno Show (NBC)

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-Ratings Breakdown:
It was a clean overnight sweep for CBS, with a first-place finish in every half-hour care of Survivor: Samoa (6.3 rating/10 share), CSI (9.2/15) and The Mentalist (10.3/18), which remains a dramatic improvement over failed year-ago 10 p.m. occupant Eleventh Hour. If you did not see Survivor last night, you missed one of the greatest blindsides in the history of the show. Amazing how fresh this long-running reality/competition remains.

No. 2 ABC trailed CBS by an average of 26 percent in the overnights, with a second-place finish in every half-hour with its line-up of FlashForward (5.9/ 9), which has settled in comfortably, Grey's Anatomy (8.3/13) and Private Practice (5.8/ 8). Led by Grey's Anatomy, ABC is always the network to beat among adults 18-49 on Thursday.

Next up was Fox's combination of Bones (#3: 5.1/ 8), which built by year-ago occupant Kitchen Nightmares (3.4/ 5 on Nov. 6, 2008) by 50 percent in the overnights, and Fringe (#4: 3.3/ 5), which has lost considerable steam in the highly competitive Thursday 9 p.m. hour. Fortunately, however, there remains great interest in Fringe among the DVR users.

Other than The Office, which always scores among adults 18-49, there was little of note on NBC last night as follows:

NBC/Thursday
8:00 p.m. Community: 3.3/ 5 (#4)
8:30 p.m. Parks and Recreation: 3.1/ 5 (#4)
9:00 p.m. The Office: 4.5/ 7 (#3)
9:30 p.m. 30 Rock: 3.7/ 6 (#3)
10:00 p.m. The Jay Leno Show: 3.4/ 6 (#3)

Overnight growth for The Office out of Parks and Recreation of a hefty 45 percent is clearly worth noting. But, personally speaking, last night's episode was both overly mean-spirited and one of the worst I have ever seen. Poor Linda Purl�first the Fonz dumps her, now this!

Rounding off this first Thursday of the Nov. 2009 sweeps (yes�this is a sweeps period!) was scripted CW duo The Vampire Diaries (#5: 2.4/ 4) and Supernatural (#5: 1.7/ 3), which is holding about the same percentage of the lead-in than it did out of former occupant Smallville.

Thursday 11/05/09

HH
Rtg/Shr
CBS 8.6/14
ABC 6.4/10
Fox 4.2/ 7
NBC 3.6/ 6
CW 2.0/ 3

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-Percent Change From the Year-Ago Evening (Thursday, November 6, 2008):
Fox: +27, CBS: + 1, ABC: -12, CW: -23, NBC: -28

Source: Nielsen Media Research data (R = repeat)