UPDATED WITH FINALS: “Grey’s Anatomy” rose to four-week highs as it celebrated its 250th episode on Thursday, lifting ABC to a No. 1 finish among non-sports networks while CBS won overall with its coverage of “Thursday Night Football.”
According to final national “live plus same-day” ratings estimates from Nielsen, “Grey’s Anatomy” averaged a 2.4 rating/8 share in adults 18-49 and 8.96 million viewers overall in the 8 o’clock hour, up a tick in the demo for a second straight week for the show’s best scores since its Sept. 24 season premiere. It also was Thursday’s No. 1 entertainment program in adults 18-34 (2.1/9). Shondaland’s Betsy Beers spoke with Variety about her memories of the past 10 years of “Grey’s Anatomy” and what lies ahead.
Also up a tick for ABC were “Scandal” (2.5/8 in 18-49, 8.28 million viewers overall), edging out “Grey’s” as the No. 1 entertainment program of the night in 18-49, and “How to Get Away With Murder” (2.1/7 in 18-49, 6.95 million viewers overall). “Murder” moved above last week’s series low but remains one of the strongest 10 p.m. shows on television (tied for the week with NBC’s “Blindspot”) and continues to perform well in delayed viewing; last week’s episode rose 1.3 ratings points in Nielsen’s “live plus-3” estimates.
At CBS, “Thursday Night Football” between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers averaged a 5.9 rating/20 share in adults 18-49 and 17.12 million viewers overall, with nearly 84% of the overall audience and about 80% of the demo viewership coming from the broadcast network. The game was up from the below-average of the last two weeks when the matchups featured the league’s less popular South divisions.
NBC’s “Heroes” (1.1/4 in 18-49, 3.80 million viewers overall) and “The Blacklist” (1.4/5 in 18-49, 6.68 million viewers overall) held steady; these shows gained 0.85 and 1.24 in 18-49, respectively, in L+3 last week. And at 10 p.m., rookie “The Player” (0.8/3 in 18-49, 4.15 million viewers overall) picked up a tenth in its fifth week.
Fox’s “Bones” (1.2/4 in 18-49, 6.06 million viewers overall) was up a tenth from last week, while its “Sleepy Hollow” held at last week’s low number (0.8/3 in 18-49, 2.89 million viewers overall). The shows will stage a crossover event next week.
CW’s “The Vampire Diaries” (0.5/2 in 18-49, 1.19 million viewers overall) and “The Originals” (0.4/1 in 18-49, 0.95 million viewers overall) were each down a tick from last week.
Bravo’s “Project Runway” was the night’s top-rated cable entertainment series in 18-49 (0.77 rating) while drawing 2.52 million viewers overall. And Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” featuring analysis of the Benghazi hearings, was cable’s most-watched non-sports program Thursday (3.13 million).
