Ratings: True Blood Roars Back Strong

True Blood's new season is off to a strong start.
The HBO vampire drama's Season 3 premiere on Sunday drew 5.1 million viewers, a 38 percent increase over the Season 2 debut and a 19 percent improvement over the Season 2 average. Including numbers for the Sunday night encore broadcast, the show drew a total of 6.4 million viewers.

Read our recap of the True Blood premiere

In Monday night's ratings battle, ABC beat out CBS for the top spot with The Bachelorette(8.3 million viewers) and True Beauty (5.4 million). Both shows, as well as CBS' night of comedy and CSI: Miamirepeats were steady in the 18-to-49 demographic compared to the previous week.Improving over last week was Fox's Lie to Me (6.8 million viewers), which was up 11 percent in the demo. The Good Guys, meanwhile, held steady with 4.4 million viewers, to give Fox third place for the night.For NBC, two hours of Last Comic Standingaveraged 4.4 million viewers, while Persons Unknown(3.4 million) was down 14 percent in the demo compared to last week.