ABC dramas dominate Thursday night

By Nellie Andreeva

ABC delivered another dominant Thursday performance with freshman "FlashForward," veteran "Grey's Anatomy" and the season premiere of "Private Practice" all winning their hours in the key 18-49 demo (including a tie).

"Practice" impressed at 10 p.m. with a 4.5 rating/13 share among adults 18-49 and 11.5 million viewers overall, the series' highest numbers since the Feb. 12 crossover episode with "Grey's." In the demo, the "Grey's" offshoot was up 36% from its season premiere on Wednesday.

At 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., "FlashForward" (3.7/11, 10.8 million) and "Grey's (6.0/15, 15.4 million) were down slightly, 8% and 10% respectively, from their premieres last week.

"FlashForward" matched the demo result for CBS' "Survivor" (3.7/11, 11.7 million) which won the 8 p.m. in viewers.

After a disappointing season opener last week, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (4.0/10, 15.6 million) held steady, as did its new lead-out, "The Mentalist" (3.7/10, 15.2 million), at 10 p.m.

NBC was also status quo with low "SNL Weekend Update Thursday" (1.8/5, 5.1 million) and "Parks and Recreation" (1.9/5, 4.6 million), average "The Office" (3.7/10, 7.3 million) and new comedy "Community" (2.9/7, 5.8 million), which hasn't been able to keep pace with its promising opening.

At 10 p.m., "The Jay Leno Show" (1.6/4, 5 million) matched its lowest demo result to date.

Fox and the CW also held steady with "Bones" (2.6/8, 9.0 million) and "Fringe" (2.3/6, 6.2 million) and "Vampire Diaries" (1.6/5, 3.5 million) and "Supernatural" (1.2/3, 2.6 million), respectively.

For the night, ABC led with a 4.7/13 in adults 18-49, followed by CBS (3.8/11), Fox (2.5/7) and NBC (2.2/6).

CBS was tops in total viewers with 14.2 million, followed by ABC (12.5 million), Fox (7.6 million) and NBC (5.4 million).