Are Ratings For 'Lost' Really That Bad?

"Lost" earned a 7.1 rating/12 share Wednesday -- identical to what it did last week -- according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. However, when compared to the rest of television Wednesday night, "Lost" didn't do half bad in the overnight numbers.

In fact, having Jack (Matthew Fox) return to the beach for the first time this season made "Lost" the fourth most-watched program of the night, behind the "American Idol" results show on Fox (which earned a 16.2/25) and a new episode of "CSI: NY," which had an 8.5/14 in the same hour as "Lost" and "Criminal Minds" -- both on CBS -- which had an 8.3/13. The closest any other show came to "Lost's" ratings was "Jericho" on CBS, which won the 8 p.m. hour with a 5.3/9, Zap2it reported.

"Lost" also apparently is on late enough to where people prefer to have the DVR record it and watch it later. TV Squad reports that when Nielsen includes 7-day timeshifted ratings numbers, "Lost" actually gains 2 million viewers, virtually more than any other show on television (with "Heroes" close behind).

In terms of this week, however, "Lost" once again struggled to find a decent lead-in show. "According to Jim" and "In Case of Emergency" battled with a rerun on The CW to earn a 3.2/5 and a 2.4/4, meaning "Lost" more than doubled the audience of those lead-in shows.

As expected, Fox won Wednesday with a 10.6/17, with CBS pulling in a 7.3/12. Despite having low-rated comedies on at 9 p.m., ABC somehow finished in third place with a 4.7/8, just each of NBC's 4.4/7.

Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that includes both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.

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