Ratings: Freshman Shows Drop, Jersey Shore Hits Another Series High

Thursday night brought bad news for most of this season's freshman series, while Jersey Shorecontinued its strong run with a new series high.

ABC's My Generation was the worst of the new series, drawing a dismal 3.8 million viewers and dropping 30 percent in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to overnight Nielsen estimates. My Generation is now the lowest-rated freshman series on the four major broadcast networks.

First-year workplace comedy Outsourced dropped to 5.7 million, falling 22 percent in the demo from last week. But the show was still ahead of its fellow NBC comedies 30 Rock (5.6 million viewers) and Community (4.5 million viewers). The Office led the Peacock with 7.3 million viewers, while The Apprentice was NBC's least-watched show at 3.7 million viewers.

After a healthy debut last week,$#*! My Dad Says fell 20 percent in the demo, attracting 10.4 million viewers thanks to a strong lead-in from The Big Bang Theory (13 million viewers). CBS won the night overall, as CSI and The Mentalist were steady with 13.3 million viewers and 14.6 million viewers, respectively.

Despite Generation's weak start, ABC placed second for the night, as Grey's Anatomy drew 12.2 million viewers, winning the 9/8c time slot in the demo. Private Practicedrew 8 million viewers to round out the night.

Fox placed fourth behind NBC, with Bones drawing 9.6 million viewers and Fringe pulling in 5.4 million viewers. The CW followed with Vampire Diaries (3.2 million viewers) and Nikita (2.7 million viewers).

On cable, Jersey Shore attracted  6.7 million viewers and beat all the broadcast networks in the demo, according to The Hollywood Reporter.