Fox's telecast of the BCS Championship game between Oklahoma and Florida was a ratings touchdown for the network Thursday night. Fox easily won the night in adults 18-49 and total viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen Media Research ratings.

The college football matchup scored an 8.4 rating/21 share and 24.4 million viewers in the Fast Nationals, though Nielsen's Time Zone Adjusted Fast Nationals for Fox show the game scored a 9.5 for its run from 8:20 p.m. to 11:49 p.m EST. The game outperformed last year's matchup between LSU and Ohio State by 16%.

ABC came in second for the night with new epiosdes, averaging a 3.6/9 overall and drawing 10.1 million viewers. "Grey's Anatomy" was the top non-sports program for the night among both viewers 18-49 and total viewers. "Ugly Betty" and "Private Practice" also took the top spots for non-sports programs in their respective hours against a night of repeats on CBS.

Repeats on CBS (2.2/5) gave the network a third-place tie with NBC (2.2/6), which had new episodes of "My Name Is Earl," "Kath & Kim," "30 Rock" and "ER" and a repeat of "The Office." CBS, however, claimed sole third place in total viewers with 9.1 million vs. NBC's 5.7 million.

The CW placed fifth (0.8/2, 2.1 million) with repeats of "Smallville" and "Supernatural." Among women 18-34 the network pulled in a 0.6.

	8	8:30	9	9:30	10	10:30
3.6 / 9	Ugly Betty 2.4 / 6 7.5 mil		Grey's Anatomy 5.1 / 12 13.7 mil		Private Practice 3.3 / 8 9 mil
2.2 / 5	CSI: NY 2.0 / 5 8.6 mil		CSI 2.7 / 6 11 mil		Eleventh Hour 1.9 / 5 7.7 mil
8.4 / 21	BCS Championship: Oklahoma-Florida 8.4 / 21 24.4 mil
2.2 / 6	My Name Is Earl 2.0 / 6 5.5 mil	Kath & Kim 1.7 / 4 4.2 mil	The Office 2.0 / 5 4.7 mil	30 Rock 2.3 / 5 5.2 mil	ER 2.6 / 7 7.3 mil
0.8 / 2	Smallville 0.9 / 2 2.3 mil		Supernatural 0.8 / 2 1.9 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 114.5 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.