Prime Time Preliminary Thursday Ratings

Reality ruled as Fox's "Hole in the Wall" and "Kitchen Nightmares" carried it to a nightly win. "Hole," now in its regular time slot, bested its Tuesday performance by 21%, while "Nightmares" posted a 21% improvement over its special last week, which aired against the season opener of "The NFL on NBC." "Big Brother" on CBS aired on the high side compared to each average, while "Flashpoint" ran its highest- rated episode to date.

	8	8:30	9	9:30	10	10:30
1.5 / 4	Ugly Betty 1.2 / 4 4.3 mil		Grey's Anatomy 1.7 / 5 5.4 mil		Private Practice 1.6 / 4 4.9 mil
2.4 / 7	Big Brother 2.7 / 8 7.9 mil		CSI 2.2 / 6 9 mil		Flashpoint 2.2 / 6 8.6 mil
2.6 / 8	Hole in the Wall 2.3 / 7 5.4 mil		Kitchen Nightmares 2.9 / 8 6.1 mil		No Programming
1.8 / 5	America's Got Talent 2.3 / 8 9.6 mil	My Name is Earl 1.6 / 5 5.2 mil	The Office 1.9 / 5 4.5 mil	The Office 2.1 / 6 4.5 mil	30 Rock 1.4 / 4 3.3 mil	The Office 1.4 / 4 3.1 mil
0.7 / 2	Smallville 0.8 / 2 2 mil		Supernatural 0.6 / 2 1.7 mil		No Programming

Source: Nielsen Media Research

*Ratings are specified in the 18-to 49-year-old demographic and viewership in P2+.

A note about ratings: Ratings are expressed as percentages of Nielsen's estimated 112.8 million U.S. television households. The first number, the rating, is a percentage of households tuned into a specific program at a specific time.

The second number, the share, is a percentage of households with televisions in use tuned into that same program. For example, if a show obtains a 10.2/16, this means that 10.2% of all U.S. households tuned into the program at some point during the broadcast. Meanwhile, 16% of all households watching television during the time period viewed the program at some point. Ratings are broken down further by demographic, as networks sell advertising time based on the makeup of the audience.