In arguably the first big marquee matchup of the new season, the premiere of ABC's Grey's Anatomy was the big winner, averaging a 10.9 rating/26 share at 9-10 in the key 18-49 demo, vs. CSI's 7.5/8 for its premiere on CBS.
A total of about 25 million viewers tuned in to Grey's to about 22 million for CSI.
ABC won the night with a 7.2/19 in the demo to second-place CBS' 6/16. CBS won the 8-9 hour with Survivor (6.4/18), leaving NBC's sitcom premieres of Earl and The Office in third place, 3.7/11 and a 4.3/11, respectively behind a clip show of Grey's (4.8/13) on ABC.
NBC was third for the night with a 4.8/12. Its top show was ER at 10, whose season premiere (6.8/18) easily beat. Six Degrees did a good number, but benefited from the whopping Grey's lead-in. Its first half-hour average was a 6.6/17, but that fell to a 4.9/13 in the second half-hour, while ER's premiere built from a 6.6/17 to a 6.9/19 over the same time. Shark dropped from a 4.5/11 in its first half-hour to a 4/11 in its second.
Fox was a blink-and-you-missed it fourth place with a 1.6/4 for new episodes of sitcoms 'Til Death and Happy Hour and the tanking reality competition Celebrity Duets (1.2/9).
Click here to read a blog of Grey's Anatomy's season premiere
