While it was good news for "Lost" that it won the Thursday night ratings for ABC (NYSE:DIS), it wasn't good news they did it while losing 12 percent of their audience from the week before.
For the night, "Lost" won the key 18-49 demo with a 3.5 percent rating. At the same time, their overall 5.7 was down from the episode shown last week. That's quite a hit with the supposed hunger for fresh TV content.
With the lead-in from "Lost," "Eli Stone" won the 10 p.m. slot with a 2.8, down a similar 15 percent over last week's episode.
If ABC runs "Lost" in its 8 existing new episodes, they'll run out of new episodes before "CSI" starts on April 3 with 6 original shows. ABC says at this time they haven't decided which show they'll run against "CSI" when it starts its new fare.
For "Lost," it's expected they'll return with original content sometime in April or May.
Thursday's second-place spot was a tie between CBS (NYSE:CBS-A) and NBC (NYSE:GE), both finishing with 3.2 ratings. CBS was led by "Survivor: Micronesia," which drew a 4.5, also a decline of 6 percent over the premiere the week before.
The special of "Deal or No Deal," which garnered a 3.4, and "Celebrity Apprentice," which ended with 3.7, helped NBC to the draw with CBS.
Fox (NYSE:NWS-A)and The CW also ended with a tie for the night, only able to finish with 1.4. The two-hour special “39th Annual NAACP Image Awards” was only able to bring a 1.4 to the Fox network, while a new episode of "Smallville" by The CW was able to beat that with a 1.5, while "Supernatural" increased by 9 percent over last week, finishing at 1.2.
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