UPDATED Thursday: CSI Has Most Total Viewers, Grey's Anatomy Wins With Youth

Scoreboard
Total Viewers (million)	14.59	10.42	7.81	3.60	3.54
Rating/Share: Adults 18-49	4.2/11	3.7/10	3.4/9	1.4/4	1.4/4

Sorry folks, but as I  write this (9:20am PDT) I hadn't yet seen the 18-34 or Univision data.  I could wait for it to show up, but, I didn't!  CBS won the night, both overall and in the 18-49 demo. In viewers CBS led ABC by a wide margin, and among 18-49 year olds, not as wide, but still a comfortable lead.  Update: I have added in the 18-34 data.  Note that some of the 18-49 data is slightly different than some other sources, but I chalk this up most likely to rounding (we're talking differences of 1/10th of a ratings point). Also, our data reflects that last night's Kitchen Nightmares was a repeat -- I have no idea whether it was or wasn't.

CSI was the evening's most watched show, though with 18.84 million average viewers it was down 18% from last week's season premiere which hauled in almost 23 million.  Though CSI had more than four million more viewers than Grey's Anatomy, Grey's easily bested CSI among 18-49 year olds.  At 14.57 million Grey's was actually up a tad from last week's overnight of 14.54 million.  Grey's was also up two tenths of a ratings point among 18-49 year olds vs. last week.

Berman crows on about the SNL: Weekend Update Special, but that dropped from 10.59 million viewers and a 5.0/12 among 18-49 year olds last week to 8.61 million and a 4.1/10 last night. Of course for NBC those are great numbers regardless, but either way the election will be over in a few weeks and then...no more specials.  The truth is everything in the NBC lineup fell down versus last week, from My Name is Earl, to the second installment of Kath & Kim (no shock there) to The Office, to ER.  Though with the numbers ER is pulling (it won the demo at 10pm) they may be talking about revival soon.

In the battle of the new series CBS' Eleventh Hour actually grew viewers versus last week while ABC's Life on Mars dropped by more than three million viewers to 8.47 million and went from first to worst.  Last week it was second among 18-49 year olds, this week it was last.  I liked the first episode, and last night's is on the DVR, but I suspect like most people, I don't get around to watching shows from the 10pm hour on DVR the same night.  Regardless the DVR numbers beyond last night (which are baked in already) won't really matter, and ABC has to be disappointed with these results.

Supernatural fans - I didn't love last night's episode.  They are in "filler episode" mode.  Great, the producers were bored and wanted to an artsy fun episode shot entirely in black and white. But perhaps I wanted to see the Oktoberfest girls in living color?  Cute episode, but pure filler -- the equivalent of a Lwaxana Troi episode on Star Trek: The Next Generation...

Fox's whole lineup for the night may be filler. There's nothing to say about Hole in The Wall, but how long will it be before they nix Kitchen Nightmares in favor of doing TWO installments of the successful Hell's Kitchen a year?  It seems to work well for Survivor.

Full details:

Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot. .

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. Source Marc Berman/Mediaweek.

Definitions:

Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.

Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.

Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)

Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.

For more information see Numbers 101.