'Lost' return earns big audience for ABC

The first in a new series of Lost attracted a strong audience for ABC and outperformed all episodes in the previous run.

It took 16.14m viewers and a 17% share of 18-49s in the Thursday night 8pm slot previously occupied by Grey's Anatomy.

That was more than double its closest competitor, Fox's Don't Forget The Lyrics, which took an 8% share.

Lost benefited as one of the few new scripted series left to run because of the Hollywood writers' strike. ABC has eight more episodes to show.

NBC's Apprentice suffered a season low of 7.82m viewers against Lost while The CW's Supernatural, showing its first new episode in seven weeks, took 2.95m.