Ratings from Thursday Night 9/24

The series premiere of FlashForward started off by winning the 8pm hour in both viewers and the 18-49 demo against solid competition in Survivor and Bones. This is definitely encouraging for ABC which will be replaying the show tonight and will likely be a heavily DVR’d show. Another good sign is that viewers increased in the second half hour when many new shows tend to see a drop instead. Despite being on at 8pm, which is traditionally a weaker time slot for the 18-49 crowd, it came in second for the evening in the demo. How the ratings turn out for the second episode should tell how compelled viewers are by the concept.

Fringe dropped from its season premiere last week but remains strong enough for Fox that along with Bones the network is a factor for the first time on Thursday nights. Going head to head with powerhouses like CSI and Grey’s at 9pm Fringe performed admirably considering the circumstances. While The Office had solid numbers Community dropped two million of those viewers which is a concern after it held a better percentage last week.

As expected Grey’s Anatomy opened big with its two hour premiere pulling in 17 million viewers. The opener for CSI came in second for the at 9pm with nearly 16 million viewers. The Mentalist at 10pm going up against the second hour of Grey’s scored 14 million. ABC won the night followed by CBS, Fox, and NBC.

8PM
ABC FlashForward (series premiere) 12.41 million viewers
CBS Survivor: Samoa 11.87 million viewers
FOX Bones 8.80 million viewers
NBC SNL Weekend Update Thursday 4.66 million viewers
CW The Vampire Diaries 3.81 million viewers
NBC Parks & Recreation 830PM 4.22 million viewers

9PM
FOX Fringe 5.85 million viewers
ABC Grey’s Anatomy (season premiere) 17.06 million viewers
CBS CSI (season premiere) 15.72 million viewers
NBC The Office 7.33 million viewers
CW Supernatural 2.62 million viewers
NBC Community 930PM 5.36 million viewers

10PM
ABC Grey’s Anatomy (season premiere) 16.52 million viewers
CBS The Mentalist (season premiere) 14.33 million viewers
NBC The Jay Leno Show 4.99 million viewers