RIGHT ICEBERG, WRONG TIP

From NYTimes Arts Briefs this morning:

'CSI' vs. 'Grey's Anatomy'
The addition of Liev Schreiber to the cast of "CSI" helped give CBS the top spot Thursday night, but "Ugly Betty" and "Grey's Anatomy," which both won Golden Globes on Monday, put ABC on top among adults 18 to 49. According to Nielsen's estimates, 21.3 million viewers tuned in at 9 p.m. for "CSI," ranking it just behind "Grey's Anatomy," which had 21.9 million viewers in the same time slot. CBS led during the 10 p.m. hour opposite a repeat of NBC's "ER" (6.1 million), as "Shark" (15 million) matched its season's best ratings in the 18 to 49 demographic. ABC's "Ugly Betty" drew the most total viewers (14.1 million) at 8, while the lead in the 18-to-49 demographic went to NBC's "My Name Is Earl" at 8 (9.7 million) and "The Office" at 8:30 (9.3 million). NBC, with "Scrubs" at 9 (6.6 million) and "30 Rock" at 9:30 (5.1 million), was third for the night. BENJAMIN TOFF

Let's just chew on that lead sentence for a second: Schreiber boosted CSI into Thursday's ratings lead...? Does Toff really believe that? If he does, does he support it in any way? Has Schreiber ever opened a movie? In his one feature lead so far (Manchurian Candidate), does anybody think he sold tickets compared to costars Meryl Streep or Denzel Washington? Does anybody consider Schrieber even remotely on the road to leading roles? Has anybody ever seen Schreiber so much as smile? Even re-reading that sentence, you're hard-pressed to figure out who actually "topped" the ratings for the night, CBS (as he initially suggests) or ABC, which apparently won "among adults 18 to 49." Does that mean you can win the evening and lose to the adults? Does he mean to imply that Schrieber helped carry CBS among younger viewers? But then, in the very next sentence, Toff insists that CSI came in second to Grey's Anatomy by at least 600,000 viewers. Why go to the trouble of assembling all this data if you can't articulate it?