Preliminary Ratings: Thursday 10/01/15

CBS had an easy time sweeping the Thursday night ratings, with THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL posting significantly better numbers than last week's game. The Steelers vs Ravens game increased over two million viewers and eight tenths of a point in the A18-49 ratings, over last week's preliminary ratings. Expect numbers to rise once finals are released, later this evening.

FOX premiered its two Thursday night dramas. BONES and SLEEPY HOLLOW held down the 4th place slot for FOX, drawing sub-par numbers. BONS is getting old and SLEEPY HOLLOW was fading fast last year. The sad part is that BONES is still one of the better performing series on the network.

NBC gave us the third season premiere of THE BLACKLIST and it did OK. That is up from last season's finale, by a few hundred thousand in total viewers and two tenths in the A18-49 demo. But, since moving to Thursday nights, The once ratings powerhouse, on Monday Nights, is now an also-ran on Thursdays and may be prematurely killing the series. And, it is not helping as a lead in as THE PLAYER lost 25% in the A18-49 demo and 33% in the A18-34 demo, from last week's premiere, despite a better lead in.

ABC stayed solid at the #2 spot with week-to-week retention mixed. GREY'S ANATOMY was down, but HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER was up. Over all, the night's average was slightly down.

Preliminary L+SD Network Averages:

	Total viewers	A18-34	A18-49	A25-54
ABC	8.40 million	2.3	2.7	3.2
CBS	14.30 million	3.9	4.7	5.3
CW	1.00 million	0.2	0.3	0.4
FOX	4.10 million	0.8	1.2	1.6
NBC	5.70 million	0.7	1.4	1.9

Time	Net	Program	Viewers*	A18-34	A18-49	A25-54
8:00	ABC	Grey's Anatomy	8.50	2.0	2.3	2.7
9:00	ABC	Scandal	9.10	2.5	2.8	3.2
10:00	ABC	HTGAWM	7.50	2.4	3.1	3.7
8:00	CBS	TNF Kickoff	10.60	2.4	3.1	3.7
8:30	CBS	TNF: PIT vs BAL	15.00	4.2	5.0	5.6
8:00	CW	The Flash [R]	1.10	0.2	0.4	0.4
9:00	CW	Arrow [R]	0.90	0.2	0.3	0.3
8:00	FOX	Bones (SP)	4.50	0.9	1.3	1.8
9:00	FOX	Sleepy Hollow (SP)	3.60	0.6	1.0	1.4
8:00	NBC	Heroes Reborn	5.00	0.8	1.6	1.9
9:00	NBC	The Blacklist (SP)	7.60	0.9	1.8	2.4
10:00	NBC	The Player	4.50	0.4	0.9	1.3

* - in millions