‘Reunion’ loses viewers to football

The return of NFL football sacked the premiere of Fox’s new drama “Reunion” Thursday night.

ABC launched its final season of “Monday Night Football” with a special Thursday opener between New England and Oakland. The game averaged 18 million viewers, up 7% compared with last year’s Thursday kickoff between New England and Indianapolis, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research. Next year, “Monday Night Football” will move to ABC’s sister network ESPN.

The game proved too much for “Reunion,” a high-concept murder mystery in which former classmates are suspects. The Fox drama had to settle for a distant third (6.6 million viewers), behind football and CBS’ repeat of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (12.8 million).

-- Scott Collins