Spotted Ratings, Thursday 9/8/11 (FINALS): Bigskin

WHAT MATTERS:

• Football was back in a huge way, with the Thursday debut of NBC's Sunday Night Football (10.9) posting the highest 18-49 rating for an NFL primetime regular season game since 1997 and the highest 18-49 rating for any TV program since Oscar on 2/27/11. The Saints/Packers matchup also narrowly outrated last year's Vikings/Saints NFL Thursday debut (10.7).

• Elsewhere, Rookie Blue (1.0 at 9:00, 1.2 at 10:00) went out rather softly against the NFL, but its 1.1 average for the two hours was even with last year's against-football two-hour finale. The CBS Fall Preview (1.7), hosted by the cast of The Big Bang Theory, completely retained its Big Bang lead-in and was up three ticks from last year's edition (which got a 1.4 and similarly had 100% retention of its lead-in).

Above based on FINAL adults 18-49 ratings unless otherwise noted.