22 Million Watch 'Miami' Season Premiere

See Also: 'Lost Son' Episode Guide

CSI: Miami kicked off the Fall season in style, attracting 22 million viewers and easily becoming the most-watched show of the night.

According to figures provided by Marc Berman at MediaWeek, "Lost Son" achieved an overnight rating of 16.6, with a 25 share. This means that out of all the American households with television sets, 16.6% were tuned in to CSI: Miami, as well as a full quarter of those househoulds actually watching TV at 10:00pm.

The Miami ratings represented a great improvement over last year, when 'only' 17,5 million people watched "Blood Brothers." The show particularly gained viewers in the age group between 18 and 49, where the rating increased from a 5.9/15 to an 8.0/20. This 36% increase will be welcome news to CBS, as this age group represents the most important demographic category for advertisers.

It was a good night for CBS anyway. At 8:00pm, the third-season premiere of the sitcom Still Standing was seen by 11.07 million people, while another 800,000 tuned in for the debut of new series Listen Up. CBS was the most-watched network during this hour, a position that a year ago still belonged to NBC's Fear Factor. At 9:00pm, CBS had to settle for second place, but the combination of Everybody Loves Raymond and Two And A Half Men was still good for a respectable 17 million.

Besides CBS, the other big winner of the night was ABC, which had a disappointing debut for reality show The Benefactor, but more than made up for that when 17 million people watched its Monday Night Football report. But over at NBC, the new Heather Locklear show LAX was severely hurt by having to compete with CSI: Miami and lost almost 5 million viewers from its debut last week.

Marc Berman's full column, in which he calls Miami one of yesterday's "winners," can be read by following this link. Please note that the above story is based on the so-called overnight ratings, calculated only from the viewership figures in the top markets in the country, and so these numbers might still change slightly when the final ratings come in.

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