random things of life

Thursday's ratings were marked by the twin farewells of President Bush and Gil Grissom, with the president's departure drawing average viewership and William Petersen's final episode of "CSI" attracting potentially season-high crowds.

Dependable numbers for some shows will remain elusive until this afternoon, since Bush’s live early evening address skewed the figures for CBS’ lineup and other network’s 8 p.m. hour. Bush’s live address totaled a 20.9 metered-market household rating across four networks.

Bush's speech had to compete with news coverage of the US Airways crash, which seemed like an oddly appropriate bookend to his presidency -- a sort of inverse Sept. 11, with another commercial aircraft crashing in New York City, only this time the event concluding wonderfully.

Based on the early numbers, William Petersen's final episode as a regular cast member of “CSI” (at least 23 million, 6.2 adults 18-49 rating and 14 share) was the night’s highest-rated show, with only the season premiere performing higher (and CBS expects last night might surpass the opener in the nationals). “Eleventh Hour” (15.5 million, 4.2/11) also performed well, though this early number contains "CSI" overrun.  

By 9 p.m., ABC’s lineup was not impacted by Bush's speech, providing reliable numbers for “Grey’s Anatomy” (12.9 million, 5.2/12) and “Private Practice” (8.7 million, 3.4/9). “Grey’s” maintained its last series-low original despite increased competition from “CSI.” More notably, “Practice” went up a tenth from last week’s debut behind "Grey's," further suggesting that the pairing of the two Shonda Rhimes soaps is effective. ABC says that if the number holds, it represents the best-of-season retention of “Grey’s” in the demo.

NBC’s 8 p.m. hour was disrupted by Bush’s speech. But originals of “The Office” (8.3 million, 4.3/10) and “30 Rock" (6.3 million, 3.2/7) were on par, with “ER” (7 million, 2.7/7) on the low side.

Fox had a modestly rated second-season finale for “Kitchen Nightmares” (4.3 million, 2.0/5) at 9 p.m.

On the CW, "Smallville" (4.3 million, 1.8/5) had its best performance since November, followed by "Supernatural"(3.0 million, 1.2/3).

More numbers to come later today ...