Ratings: The Voice Makes Itself Loudly Heard in Debut
Adam Levine
The Voice made itself heard quite loudly in its two-hour debut Tuesday, attracting 11.77 million pairs of ears and winning the important advertiser-coveted demographic.
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NBC's new singing-talent show placed a solid second to the Dancing with the Stars results program — 11.37 million viewers vs. 18 million — and relegated an NCIS: Los Angeles repeat (10.22 million) to third place at 9/8c. The CW's Hellcats managed 1.06 million.
The Voice's 12.16 million viewers during the 10 o'clock hour edged the 12.06 million for Dana Delany's Body of Proof (which last month became the second most-watched premiere of the 2010-11 network TV season) and handily outpaced a rerun of The Mentalist (8.01 million).
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The Voice also soared among 18-to-49-year-olds, averaging a 5.1 rating, which makes it the highest-rated series premiere on any network in the demo since CBS launched Undercover Boss after last year's Super Bowl. Dancing scored a 2.4 for its recap show at 8/7c, and a 3.5 for the results portion that went head to head with The Voice.
The show — which was heavily promoted but got mixed reviews — helped NBC boost its viewership for its time slots by 60 percent (from about 7.3 million) and the demo by 39 percent. ABC won the night in total viewers (14.30 million), but the news of course is that NBC finished second — with 10.34 million.
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In prime time's first hour, Dancing pulled in 12.85 million people vs. a rerun of NCIS on CBS (11.14 million viewers), and first-run episodes of a 90-minute Glee on Fox (8.51 million), The Biggest Loser: Couples (7.5 million) and the CW's One Tree Hill (1.54 million).