CBS Stomps Rivals in Thursday's Ratings Race

[Brett Ferino]

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - CBS ruled the primetime roost on Thursday as NBC served up reruns of "Friends," "Will & Grace " and "ER."

ABC and Fox, meanwhile, were deep in the Nielsen cellar with near record-low ratings for the night, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research.

CBS won the night by a wide margins with big turnouts for "Survivor: Amazon" (19.1 million viewers, 7.2 rating/21 share in the adults 18-49 demo), "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (26.1 million, 9.7/25) and "Without a Trace" which had no trouble beating NBC's 10 p.m. "ER" rerun (11.7 million, 5.3/14).

NBC sandwiched originals of "Scrubs" and "Good Morning, Miami" between its tentpole reruns but all around it was a lackluster night for the network, which took second place (11.9 million, 5.5/15) behind CBS (20.9 million, 7.7/21).

ABC's 8-10 p.m. block of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" episodes (one original followed by three repeats) and 10 p.m. newsmagazine "Primetime Live" yielded an anemic 5.1 million viewers and 1.8/5 in 18-49 for the night. Fox was even further behind with a nightly average of 4 million viewers and 1.9/5 in the demo generated by back-to-back "That '70s Show" repeats and 9 p.m. newsmagazine "The Pulse" (3.6 million, 1.5/4).