TV Ratings: ‘Big Brother’ and preseason football lead CBS and FOX to split Thursday

Fast national ratings for Thursday, August 16, 2012.

“Big Brother” and repeats of popular sitcoms on CBS dueled with preseason football on FOX in the Thursday night ratings, while ABC’s “Time Machine Chefs” couldn’t take the network back to a point where it had a big new summer hit, and the CW’s “The Next” only lived up to its title when you factor in that network’s other summer disappointments.

For the night, FOX averaged a 1.9 rating among adults 18-49, and 5.2 million viewers overall, while CBS averaged a 1.8 and 6.2 million. ABC was third (1.4, 4.6 million), followed by NBC (1.0, 4.2 million) and the CW (0.3, 981,000).

8 p.m. — CBS won the hour with “Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men” repeats, which combined to average a 2.0 rating and 7.5 million viewers. FOX’s coverage of the Bengals-Falcons exhibition game was second (1.8, 4.9 million), followed by ABC’s “Wipeout” (1.6, 5.5 million), “Office” and “Parks and Recreation” repeats on NBC (1.0, 3.2 million) and a rerun of the CW’s “Oh Sit!” (0.3, 911,000).

9 p.m. —
A new “Big Brother” won the hour for CBS (2.3, 6.3 million), followed by more FOX football (2.0, 5.5 million), the debut of “Time Machine Chefs” (1.2, 3.5 million), a new “Saving Hope” on NBC (0.9, 4.2 million) and the premiere of “The Next” on the CW (0.3, 850,000).

10 p.m. — Three shows hovering slightly above or below 5 million viewers, and within percentage points of each other in the demo: ABC’s “Rookie Blue” did a 1.3 and 5 4.99 million viewers, NBC’s “Rock Center with Brian Williams” did a 1.2 and 5.15 million viewers, and CBS’ “Person of Interest” repeat did a 1.1 and 4.97 million viewers.

All ratings information comes from preliminary Fast National Nielsen data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are subject to change.

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