TV Ratings: "October Road" Slips, "5th Grader" and "Betty" Tie

ABC may have the best schedule in years (and it is only about to get better), but it has also sprung a Nielsen leak. In addition to recent losses of the network's core hits "Desperate Housewives" and "LOST", the freshman comedy "Ugly Betty"...

...may have also shed about 3 million viewers from its average season levels. For the second week in a row, an all-new episode of "Ugly Betty" pulled in only about 10 million viewers, finishing an inch ahead of FOX's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"

The game show that seriously needs to speed things up in order to avoid viewer fatigue did however win the timeslot in the 18-49 demo. Nevertheless, over 2 million people abandoned the show since last week's timeslot premiere and CBS's "Survivor" which returns next Thursday may bring further viewer erosion.

FOX is however very happy with "5th Grader" as they haven't had such great results on Thursday nights in about 10 years.

The #1 show of the evening was "Grey's Anatomy" at 9pm with 21,89 million viewers, helping ABC win the night.

Not only did "October Road" lose 1,4 million viewers since last week, but about 3 million people tuned out of the midseason drama by the second half hour.

Although "Smallville" lost about half a million viewers since last week's Luthor wedding, "Supernatural" boys remain quite strong with 3,52 million viewers.

"Raines" on NBC scored 8,62 million viewers, losing a fifth of last week's series premiere audience.

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