ABC rules final Thursday

'Anatomy,' 'Lost' win against finales

By RICK KISSELL

ABC's 'Lost,' which ends its season a week from Thursday, led in key demos, beating season finales of 'ER' and 'Without a Trace.'

ABC's 'Grey's Anatomy' beat the season finales of 'CSI' on CBS and 'The Office' on NBC.

Despite facing finales on other networks, ABC prevailed in key demos on the final Thursday of the season behind "Grey's Anatomy" and "Lost."

In another sign of how wacky this television campaign has been, ABC opted to not air finales of its skeins on the final Thursday of the sweep and season opposite the likes of "CSI" and "Without a Trace" on CBS and "The Office" and "ER" on NBC.

Needing more time to finish segs of its shows following the writers strike, the Alphabet decided to schedule on its own timetable -- sweep ratings be damned. "Grey's Anatomy" and "Ugly Betty" wrap their seasons this week, while "Lost" goes out the following Thursday.

Looking at Thursday's action, "Grey's Anatomy" won the hotly contested 9 o'clock in demos with a 6.1 rating/15 share in adults 18-49 and 15.55 million viewers overall. It beat out the season finales of "CSI" on CBS (4.9/12 in 18-49, 18.06m) and "The Office" on NBC (4.2/10, 8.21m).

"CSI," which won the hour in men 25-54 and total viewers, was down about 20% in 18-49 from its year-ago season finale, while "The Office," which led in men 18-34 and 18-49, improved by 8% in 18-49 -- despite airing in the easier 8 o'clock hour a year ago.

Ratings for the three 9 o'clock heavyweights are expected to rise by 15%-20% when all same-week DVR playback is included. Nielsen's sample of DVR homes currently stands at about 24%, compared with 16% at this time a year ago.

ABC led in all key demos at 10 o'clock with "Lost" (4.9/13 in 18-49, 10.96m), which was up against finales of "Without a Trace" (3.6/10, 14.54m) and "ER" (3.3/9, 8.43m).

And NBC led in the night's opening hour in demos with the season finale of "My Name Is Earl" (3.0/9 in 18-49, 7.17m), which logged its best scores in five weeks and held off ABC's "Ugly Betty" (2.7/8, 8.47m).

ABC easily won the night in 18-49 (4.6/12), while CBS led in total viewers (13.4 million), with both nets making it four straight May sweep Thursday victories in the respective categories. NBC ran second Thursday in both 18-49 (3.5/10, edging out CBS' 3.4/9) and 18-34 (3.3/10).

CBS won the final Friday of the season, according to Nielsen prelims, behind "Ghost Whisperer" (2.0/7 in 18-49, 8.4 million) and "Numbers" (2.3/7, 9.7 million) and a second-place perf by the now-canceled "Moonlight" (1.8/5, 7.6 million).

And of note in latenight, NBC's "Saturday Night Live" drew its highest overnight household rating for a season finale in three years (5.4/13 share) for an episode featuring host Steve Carell and musical guest Usher.