On a night with three new shows premiering, it was the old favorites that prevailed.

The ninth-season premiere of CBS drama “CSI” drew its best rating since before the writers’ strike last night and bested timeslot competitor “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC for the first time ever, lifting CBS to an easy nightly win.

Airing opposite highly touted new show premieres on CBS and ABC, it was NBC’s 15th-year show that prevailed. “ER” managed its best rating in months en route to topping CBS’s “Eleventh Hour” and ABC’s “Life on Mars” in the 10 p.m. timeslot.

And the top-rated new comedy of the night was a spinoff of one of the oldest shows on television, “Saturday Night Live.”

“CSI” averaged a 7.0 adults 18-49 rating, according to Nielsen overnights, 1.5 ahead of “Grey’s,” which saw its audience plummet by 27 percent after premiering two weeks ago. It was the first time since "Grey's" moved to Thursday two years ago that the show was not the top-rated program of the night in 18-49s.

It continued a recent trend of procedurals performing well on CBS, which also did a nice job of promoting the “CSI” premiere in which original cast member Jorja Fox returned and Gary Dourdan made his final appearance.

At 10 p.m. “ER” averaged a 3.9, 0.1 ahead of “Mars” and 0.6 ahead of “Hour.” “Hour” squandered more than half its lead-in among 18-49s and nearly half in total viewers, where it tied “Mars” for first in the timeslot with 11.6 million total viewers.

“Mars” performed much better than last year’s post-“Grey’s” timeslot holder, “Big Shots,” holding 69 percent of its lead-in and tying for the best new show premiere of the year with CBS’s quickly fading “Worst Week.”

Meanwhile, at 9:30 p.m., the first of three special episodes of “Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday” averaged a strong 5.0 rating, the night’s No. 3 show and 47 percent better than NBC’s average in the timeslot last year.

The final new show, NBC’s “Kath & Kim,” got a solid start with a 3.2 rating at 8:30 p.m., building on lead-in “My Name is Earl” by 19 percent.

As a reminder, all ratings are based on live-plus-same-day DVR playback. Seven-day DVR data won’t be available for several weeks. Twenty-eight percent of Nielsen households have DVRs.
 
CBS finished first for the night among 18-49s with a 4.9 average overnight rating and a 13 share. ABC was second at 4.0/10, NBC third at 3.9/10, Fox fourth at 2.1/5, Univision fifth at 1.8/5 and CW sixth at 1.5/4.

As a reminder, ratings for Fox’s National League Championship Series are approximate as fast nationals measure timeslot and not actual program data.
 
At 8 p.m. CBS was first with a 4.3 for “Survivor,” followed by NBC with a 3.0 for “Earl” (2.7) and “Kim” (3.2). ABC was third with a 2.6 for “Ugly Betty,” Univision fourth with a 1.9 for “Cuidado con el Angel,” Fox fifth with a 1.8 for its first hour of baseball and CW sixth with a 1.6 for “Smallville.”
 
CBS led again at 9 p.m. with a 7.0 for “CSI,” while ABC moved to second with a 5.5 for “Grey’s.” NBC was third with a 4.8 for “The Office” (4.6) and “SNL” (5.0), Univision fourth with a 2.3 for “Fuego en la Sangre,” Fox fifth with a 2.0 for baseball and CW sixth with a 1.4 for “Supernatural.”
 
At 10 p.m. NBC took the lead with a 3.9 for “ER,” with ABC second with a 3.8 for “Mars.” CBS was third with a 3.3 for “Hour,” Fox fourth with a 2.4 for baseball and Univision fifth with a 1.4 for “La Rosa de Guadalupe.”
 
CBS also led the night among households with a 9.6 average overnight rating and a 15 share. ABC was second at 7.7/12, NBC third at 5.5/9, Fox fourth at 4.4/7, CW fifth at 2.3/4 and Univision sixth at 2.2/4.