At 8pm, ABC continue with the fourth episode of Last Resort. It scored a 1.7 18/49 rating, and 7.06 million viewers, This is up 0.1 of a ratings point, and just shy of 200,000 viewers on last week's episode, bearing in mind its scheduling was not affected by last week's debate. Also unaffected was the CBS comedy duo of The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, at 8pm and 8:30pm respectively. Both were well up on last week's performances, with The Big Bang Theory up to a 4.8 rating, a 0.3 increase on last week, and 1.6 million viewers, to 15.73 million viewers this week. Two and a Half Men must have benefited from The Big Bang Theory's performance, because it was up a whopping 0.5 of a ratings point on last week's effort, with a 4.0 rating this week. The audience was also up, with 2.25 million more viewers tuning this week compared to last week, with this week's episode drawing 13.60 million viewers. On NBC, 30 Rock aired at 8pm, earning a 1.2 rating, with 3.04 million viewers tuning in. At 8:30pm, Up All Night aired, with a 1.3 rating and 2.99 million viewers. Very little in the performance of these two shows, despite the numbers being low at best
At 9pm, CBS's Person of Interest took over from the lead-in comedies, and although more viewers tuned in then compared to its direct lead-in, 13.93 million viewers to be precise, its rating was down 1.2 points on its lead-in, to a 2.8. This is 0.2 of a point down on the previous episode a fortnight ago, but only 0.1 down on the season premiere the week before that. Over on ABC, Grey's Anatomy managed a 3.4 rating and 9.69 million viewers, by far a season low, and the lowest rating and audience stats of a third episode of a season in the history of the series. See the season comparison graphs here to check this out yourself. The Office was NBC's best performing show of the night, scoring a 2.1 rating and 4.28 million viewers.
At 10pm, ABC's Scandal returned, as did the continued 0.1 drop in ratings on the week prior, with a 1.9 rating and 6.17 million viewers this week, though it was adjusted down 0.1 from the preliminary ratings. For the first four episodes last season, the show maintained a 2.0 rating as seen in these graphs, but this season hasn't followed along so far. On CBS, freshman series Elementary dropped 0.2 of a ratings point on its rating a fortnight ago, with a 2.3 rating and 10.91 million viewers, a drop of about 200,000 viewers on the episode a fortnight ago. The ratings performance of Elementary reminds me of ABC's Castle, on Mondays at 10pm, because so far this season it's had very respectable audience numbers for a 10pm show, but the ratings simply don't reflect that, and this is the same with Castle, as it has been for the four seasons prior to this one. It will be interesting to see how CBS react to this, and whether or not it sees a renewal for a second season next year
For the record, FOX aired a Major League Baseball playoff game, which averaged a 1.6 rating and 6.04 million viewers over the three hour primetime period.
As usual, I'll finish up with a couple of graphs, and I thought it was timely to put up the universal season comparison ratings and audience graphs, considering the season has nearly finished its fourth week. To see the tables in a larger size, the tables that make up these graphs, and a key for the initials of all the shows, check out this page on my website
Were this week's Thursday ratings what you expected?? How did your favorite shows perform?? Make yourself heard in the comments below
As usual, thanks for reading,
Jimmy
