Thursday's TV Ratings: 'Big Brother' Leads CBS to Win

CBS' hit show Big Brother came away with the ratings crown on Thursday night.

The competitive reality show hit a 1.3/6 rating with 4.9 million viewers, helping the network get a 1.0 rating and an average of 4.6 million viewers in the highly competitive 18-49 demographic.

ABC and NBC tied for second in the ratings with a 0.6/3 rating, though NBC inched ahead in total viewers with 3.8 million compared to ABC's 3.4 million.

NBC's schedule included two new episodes of Little Big Shots, while ABC aired new episodes of The Gong Show, Match Game and Take Two.

Further down the list Fox and Telemundo tied for fourth place, Univision took sixth, while The CW finished in a whopping seventh.

Wednesday's episode of Big Brother saw its first eviction from the house when undercover cop Steve was given the boot.

Steve and Sam, a welder, were both up for eviction after being nominated by Head of Household Tyler. During a live eviction ceremony, contestants JC, Rachel, Kaycee, Angela, Kaitlyn, Brett and Winston all picked for Steve to go, outvoting the other six competitors who selected Sam.

Big Brother host Julie Chen said in a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight that after seeing the current season's crop of contestants live inside the house for two weeks, she's confident Tyler (Crispen) will come out as the winner.

"He's likable, he's believable, he's playing all sides of the house, but not in this unlikable, slimy way," Chen explained. "He's doing it in a smart way ... he also has side, like, final two deals with, like, four people? And I think only one of the people are in the Level 6 alliance! So, he has his bases covered, and no one was bent out of shape because of his HoH nominations, and he didn't have to nominate another person, because Power of Veto was not used."

"He's keeping his lies straight," she continued. "He's a lot smarter — you know, when he first moved in, I was like, oh, he's Sean Penn's character, Spicoli, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But that's not the case at all, and I think, outside of the house, he strikes me as someone who's a good person. Anyone who wants to save the oceans cannot be a bad guy."

Were he to somehow be voted out, Chen thinks Sam (Bledsoe) could come away win the win even though she was facing elimination on Wednesday.

"This woman is a welder, she's fearless," Chen said. "She's not too precious to get in there. She's a fighter, so she's definitely one to watch."

Big Brother airs its next new episode on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.