There is enough ambiguity in the math for either side to claim victory, but in the simplest since, “The Voice” has already handed its reality competition crown back to “American Idol.”
Following Sunday’s monster Super Bowl airing and a respectable timeslot premiere last Monday, “The Voice” fell to a 5.9 adults 18-49 rating with 16.1 million viewers. While still a monster number for NBC–or any broadcast network, in fact–the rating, at least as far as the fast nationals go, is a drop behind the 6.0 demo number “American Idol” posted for its flagship night last Wednesday.
And that “Idol” episode was only an hour in length–both “The Voice” and “Idol” tend to perform notably better in their second hours.
Still, when a show holds so well from its timeslot premiere (6.6 last Monday), especially given the hype and buzz that factored into the premiere and inflated the audience, it deserves credit.
NBC’s new 10PM drama “Smash” was not quite so lucky. While its 2.8 rating and 8.1 million viewer average are strong by NBC standards, the significant drop from last week’s 3.8 are not so forgivable. Compounding the disappointment is the fact that “Smash” declined by a much greater proportion than its high-profile, theoretically more-likely-to-have-been-inflated lead-in.
As with last week, the show declined for its second half-hour (this time to a 2.5), indicating that the core audience actually enjoying the show is even lower than the overall rating suggests.
