A reported big reveal in time for November sweeps not only gave "Supernatural" its best rating of the season, but its biggest audience in at least two years Thursday.
The CW drama earned a 2.5 rating/4 share in Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research, up nearly 9 percent from its already large audience last week, and up nearly 14 percent of its season average after nine episodes.
Last season, "Supernatural" reached a high of just 2.2/3 following "Smallville," but either topped or matched that high over the first four episodes of this season. After a couple weak outings in mid-October, "Supernatural" returned to form by Halloween, and has been blowing all of its previous numbers out of the water.
"Smallville," as a lead-in, hasn't done too badly either. Thursday's episode earned a 2.7/4, according to Zap2it, down 7 percent from its previous week audience ... but its previous week audience also was a season high 2.9/5 with the return of Supergirl. Its audience this week was up 3.7 percent from its average audience.
Thursdays are a busy night for genre shows. "Life On Mars" on ABC and "Eleventh Hour" on CBS both had to deal with some stunt casting on NBC's "ER," which helped that medical drama to a 6.5/11. "Eleventh Hour," however, stayed steady, winning the hour once again with a 7.6/13. "Life On Mars" earned a 6.0/10, matching last week's audience that included a guest appearance by Whoopi Goldberg, and just about 1.6 percent off its average audience, boosted mostly by a strong series premiere.
"Eleventh Hour" lost 34 percent of its lead-in audience from "CSI" while "Life On Mars" was off nearly 42 percent from its poorly matched lead-in "Grey's Anatomy." ABC is expected to move "Life On Mars" to Wednesdays at mid-season, making it a lead-out to the much better matched "Lost."
ABC finished second for the night with a 7.5/12 behind CBS' 9.0/14. The CW finished the night with a rather strong 2.6/4.
Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that includes both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.
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Michael Hinman is the founder and site coordinator for Airlock Alpha and the entire BlipNetwork. He owns Quantum Global Media Inc., the parent corporation of the BlipNetwork. He's a print journalist by day, and lives in Tampa, Fla.
