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TV ratings: Olympics skate to another win Thursday
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Fast National ratings for Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010Evan Lysacek's gold medal in men's figure skating at the Olympics carried NBC to another ratings win Thursday, driving "Grey's Anatomy" to one of its smallest audiences ever in the process.
NBC's 25.3 million viewers and 14.7 rating/23 share in households won the night by a huge margin. CBS (9.55 million, 5.9/9) came in second, while ABC (7.4 million, 4.9/8) was third. FOX came in fourth with 4.6 million viewers and a 2.9/5. The CW (1.6 million, 1.1/2) trailed.
The story was pretty much the same in the adults 18-49 demographic, where NBC drew a 7.1. ABC and CBS tied for second at 2.5. FOX averaged 1.3 and The CW 0.7.
Thursday hour by hour:
8 p.m.
NBC: Winter Olympics (24.2 million viewers, 14.1/22 households)
CBS: "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains" (11.9 million, 6.9/11)
FOX: "Bones" rerun (5.7 million, 3.7/6)
ABC: "The Deep End" (4.3 million, 3.0/5)
The CW: "The Vampire Diaries" rerun (1.7 million, 1.1/2)
18-49 leader: Winter Olympics (6.2)
9 p.m.
NBC: Winter Olympics (28.4 million, 16.2/25)
ABC: "Grey's Anatomy" (10.2 million, 6.6/10)
CBS: "The Mentalist" rerun (8.8 million, 5.7/9)
FOX: "Past Life" (3.5 million, 2.2/3)
The CW: "Supernatural" rerun (1.5 million, 1.0/2)
18-49 leader: Winter Olympics (8.3)
10 p.m.
NBC: Winter Olympics (23.3 million, 13.9/23)
CBS: "CSI" rerun (7.9 million, 5.3/9)
ABC: "Private Practice" (7.6 million, 5.1/8)
18-49 leader: Winter Olympics (6.8)
Ratings information includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change. Source: The Nielsen Company.
More ratings at Zap2it: Daily, weekly and cable
Photo credit: Getty Images
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Man the Olympics are killing the ratings for my favorite shows on ABC :(
An incredible night of Olympics last night. I'm surprised the other networks aren't running more reruns instead of getting trounced.
It would have been nice if the skating was on earlier, but at least in this particular case they were on live instead of being earlier and delayed as late as possible.
Evan Lysaceh's performance didn't even happen in 'prime time', and I wonder how many people were still watching after midnight (ET) when we found out that he had won Gold. He had nothing to do with 'Grey's' poor performance. So they shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence... Rick!!!
I love and still watch Grey's Anatomy however even I didn't watch it last night in favor of the Olympics. I think it was foolish of ABC to waste a new episode of this series against the Olympics.
I'm not from the USA and i'd like to ask you if there is any chance of NBC showing other sports events after the Olympics just to keep the ratings high or are the Olympics the only sport event that has big rating?
I'm not from the USA, I am from Mother Russia and I'd like to ask you if there is any chance of NBC showing other sports events after the Olympics just to keep the ratings high or are the Olympics the only sport event that has big rating?
I miss Rena today :(
Why did CBS flip the Mentalist and CSI time slots?
Jonathan, CBS flipped the shows because they wanted to see if putting The Mentalist at an earlier time would have an effect on the ratings against Grey's Anatomy, since CSI is starting to lose a bit of steam (so is Grey's, but to a lesser extent). The idea of doing this experiment with reruns may be a little illogical, but it still gives the network an idea of what to put in CSI's place once that show eventually bows out, which will likely happen in another season or two.
Also, the same demo that loves Simon Baker also watches Grey's, so that may have been CBS trying to tweak ABC's nose a bit.
In response to another post. The figure skating events were live in prime time not tape delayed.