Ratings Show 'CSI' Phenomenon Still Spearheading CBS Success

See Also: 'Grand Master' Episode Guide

It comes as no surprise to anybody – but it's still great news for the show, the fans and CBS that CSI: Miami and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation finished top of the pile on Monday and Thursday nights – the latter still being primetime's number one show.

According to figures from Mediaweek, "Murder in a Flash" scored a CSI: Miami 15.3/23 rating this week, placing it easily first in its timeslot with 21.35 million viewers tuning last Monday. These ratings mean that out of all the households in America, 15.3% were watching Miami, rising to 23% when factoring only in those households actually watching TV at 10:00pm. CBS also opened the week wihth highest number of overall viewers for the night (16.36 million average over the night).

Crossing the heart of America over to Las Vegas, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation worked its usual wonders too."Harvest" came in with a rating of 20.1/29, and a massive 28.23 million viewers on Thursday night. This shows a significant growth over the previous year, with the show earning a 16.1/24 rating at around the same time in the fourth season.

This success extended to the lead-out programme – CBS's Without a Trace capitalised on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's success at 10:00pm on Thursday night by retaining over 68% of its viewers (19.32 million) to beat off NBC's ER once again in overall audience share and size. Together with Miami's lead-in, Everybody Loves Raymond, the shows made up four of the five most watched primetime programmes last week, and show no signs of slowing down. CSI: New York did not air this week due to the presidential debate; however it will be back this Wednesday in it's usual time slot with "Grand Master", which will include a guest appearance by hip-hop artist Master-P (story).

Full reports can be found at the Mediaweek in their "Programming Insider" columns.

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