'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' Still Reigns Supreme

See Also: 'Viva Las Vegas' Episode Guide

After flexing its muscles with the premieres of CSI: Miami and CSI: New York, the CSI franchise demonstrated the full extent of its popularity last night by attracting more than 30 million people to "Viva Las Vegas".

According to the Thursday ratings report at Zap2It, last night's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation debut scored a 18.3 rating with a 28 share. This means that out of all homes with televisions in America, 18.3% were tuned in to CSI, as well as 28% of those households actually watching television at 9:00pm. These ratings are almost the same as last year, when CSI managed to get a 19.1/27 rating and 29.9 million viewers. Like last year, CSI will end up being the most popular show on television this week.

With numbers like these, CBS managed to shatter the competition. Opposite CSI, NBC gave the best effort by airing the third episode of The Apprentice 2, which with 15.7 million viewers performed only half as well as CSI. Other contendors included ABC's Extreme Makeover, which was watched by 6.5 million viewers, and several also-rans in the form of of UPN's WWE Smackdown, Fox's Totally Outrageous Behavior and a repeat of the WB's The Mountain.

Unlike last year, when CBS still had to concede the overall night to NBC, the Eye network yesterday won in each individual timeslot. At 8:00pm, Survivor: Vanuatu was watched by 19 million people compared to the 15 million tuning in to Joey and Will & Grace on NBC. At 10:00pm, the CSI lead-out Without A Trace scored an all-time high viewership record of 21.4 million people, beating ER's 19.7 million - the first time ER was ever beaten by another drama show since 1994. In other records trivia news, Variety reported this was the first Thursday night in 14 years on which CBS managed to win in the important adults 18-49 category.

The full ratings report from Zap2It can be found here. Please note that as of next week, CSI Files will combine the ratings reports for all three CSI shows in one news item to be published at the end of the week, except in the case of special event episodes.

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