TV Jots

8pm: Survivor: China made CBS an immediate winner, attracting 14.76 million viewers and achieving a 4.8 rating/13 share for viewers aged 18 to 49. ABC’s Emmy-winning dramedy Ugly Betty pulled in second (10.73m, 3.5/10), just ahead of Fox’s Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (9.6m, 3.0/7). The game show was followed by NBC’s comedy duo My Name Is Earl (7.97m, 3.6/10) and 30 Rock (6.47m, 3.2/8), and then The CW’s engaging superhero drama Smallville (4.49m, 1.9/5).

9pm: CBS’s reign continued at 9pm with CSI’s 21.29 million viewers and 6.4/15. Grey’s Anatomy on ABC tried hard to beat those numbers, posting just two million fewer viewers (19.28m) but a higher 8.1/9. The NBC sitcoms The Office (8.86m, 4.8/11) and Scrubs (6.04m, 3.2/7) ranked third, ahead of Fox’s second game show of the night, Don’t Forget the Lyrics (6.01, 2.1/5), and The CW’s extremely entertaining Supernatural (2.89m, 1.2/3).

10pm: Without A Trace (14.49m, 4.1/11) sealed the deal for CBS in the final hour, while NBC’s aging hospital drama ER (9.52m, 3.8/11) and a special episode of ABC’s Friday-night rookie procedural Women’s Murder Club (8.93m, 3.3/9) trailed behind.

Overall: CBS (16.85m, 5.1/13) left no doubt as to who was king, and ABC (12.98m, 5.0/12) worked hard for a respectable second-place finish, especially among 18–49-year-olds. NBC (8.06m, 3.7/9) managed to come in third, with Fox (7.81m, 2.5/6) and The CW (3.69m, 1.5/4) pulling up the rear.

DATA EXPLANATION: In the households figure 6.4/11, 6.4 is the household RATING that indicates what average percentage of U.S. households tuned into a particular show (6.4%), while 11 is the household SHARE that refers to what average percentage of televisions in use were tuned into a particular show (11%).

Tags: November Sweeps, ratings, television, tv