'The Big Bang Theory' Tops Thursday Ratings

It was a good Thursday for broadcast television with nearly across-the-board week-over-week gains.

With solid outings for CBS comedies The Big Bang Theory and $#*! My Dad Says, and dramas CSI and The Mentalist, CBS won the night with a 3.3 rating in the 18-49 demo and 13.5 million total viewers. ABC was second (3.1, 8.9 million) followed by Fox (2.3, 7.1 million), NBC (2.2 rating, 4.9 million viewers) and the CW (1.1 rating, 3.2 million).

CBS comedies The Big Bang Theory On DVD (4.3, 13 million) and $#*! My Dad Says (3.1, 10.2 million) easily won the 8 p.m. hour followed by Fox’s Bones (2.7, 9.4 million) and ABC’s Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (2.2, 7.4 million). NBC comedies Community (1.9, 4.4 million) and 30 Rock DVD (2.3, 5.1 million) were fourth.

At 9 p.m., ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy was up 8% to a 4.3 (11.4 million) for the win. NBC’s The Office (3.7, 7.2 million) and Outsourced (2.7, 5.4 million) just edged CBS’CSI in the demo (3.1), but the crime procedural pulled in 14.1 million viewers. Fox’s Fringe (1.9, 4.9 million) was fourth in the 9 p.m. hour.

At 10 p.m., CBS’ The Mentalist (3.0, 14.6 million) just edged out ABC’s Private Practice in the demo (2.9) while Practice pulled in 8 million viewers. And The Apprentice was down to a 1.2 in the demo, a 14% decline week-to-week and a TV Series On DVD low, while the Donald Trump reality franchise managed only 3.5 million viewers.

The CW ran repeats of The Vampire Diaries and Nikita.