Ratings News - 7th February 2012 *Full Tables Added*

METERED MARKET MONDAY RATINGS
Winning Night for NBC

Monday 2/06/12
Metered Market Results

Household
Rating/Share
NBC 9.7/15
CBS 7.1/11
ABC 6.0/ 9
Fox 4.9/ 7
CW 1.2/ 2

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-Percent Change from Year-Ago Evening – Monday 2/07/11
NBC: +131, ABC: - 6, CBS: - 8, CW: -20, Fox: -35

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-Winners:
The Voice (NBC), How I Met Your Mother (CBS), 2 Broke Girls (CBS), Two and a Half Men (CBS), Smash (NBC)

-Honorable Mention:
The Bachelor (ABC)

-Losers (excluding repeats):
Gossip Girl (CW), Hart of Dixie (CW)

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-Ratings Breakdown:
It was a huge night for highly promoted NBC, which beat normally dominant CBS by a hefty 37 percent in the overnights. Comparably, NBC finished first in all six half-hours. Third overall was the home of The Bachelor, ABC, followed by Fox and very distant The CW.

Following the mammoth 37.6 million viewers who tuned in for the season-premiere of The Voice after The Super Bowl on Sunday, the singing competition opened in its regularly scheduled Monday 8-10 p.m. block with a 10.6 rating/16 share in the overnights. Comparably, that bested year-ago occupants Chuck (3.4/ 5 on 2/07/11) and The Cape (2.7/ 4) by a massive 248 percent. And it beat CBS’ second-place (but still potent) combination of How I Met Your Mother (#6.7/10), 2 Broke Girls (7.5/11), Two and a Half Men (8.5/12) and Mike & Molly (7.0/10) by an average of 43 percent.

Here is the half-hour breakdown for The Voice:

The Voice (NBC)
8:00 p.m.: 9.6/14 (#1)
8:30 p.m.: 10.4/15 (#1)
9:00 p.m.: 11.3/17 (#1)
9:30 p.m.: 11.1/16 (#1)

The Voice led into the series-premiere of musical dramedy Smash at an also first-place 7.7/13 in the overnights from 10-11 p.m. Comparably, that outdelivered year-ago occupant Harry’s Law (6.3/10 on 2/07/11) by 22 percent. The audience skew, needless to say, is expected to be considerably younger. And it beat the debut of short-lived fall occupant The Playboy Club (3.9/ 6 on 9/19/11) by 97 percent. Smash was also a huge improvement over recent time period occupant Rock Center with Brian Williams. While this is a very promising start for Smash, retention out of the 9:30 p.m. portion of The Voice (11.1/16) was 69 percent. And there was a loss of 14 percent in the second half-hour (8.3/13 to 7.2/12). But NBC clearly did what it set out to accomplish, and that was to get Smash sampled.

Capping off the evening for CBS was sophomore crime solver Hawaii Five-O at a second-place 6.4/11 at 10 p.m. Opposite Smash, that was 14 percent below the year-ago evening (7.4/12 on 2/07/11).

Over at ABC, The Bachelor was at typical overnight levels despite facing The Voice, with a 6.0/ 9 from 8-10 p.m. and the half-hour breakdown as follows:

The Bachelor (ABC)
8:00 p.m.: 5.9/ 9 (#3)
8:30 p.m.: 5.9/ 9 (#3)
9:00 p.m.: 6.0/ 9 (#3)
9:30 p.m.: 6.3/ 9 (#3)

The Bachelor led into Castle, which finished third at 10 p.m. with a competitive 6.1/11.

Fox took at hit opposite The Voice with tired House at a fourth-place 5.1/ 8 in the overnights at 8 p.m., followed by week four of drama Alcatraz at a series-low 4.7/ 7 at 9 p.m., which also finished fourth. Alcatraz still, however, remains a good fit out of House with retention of 92 percent.

As always, The CW could not compete with its line-up of Gossip Girl (#5: 1.2/ 2) and freshman Hart of Dixie (#5: 1.3/ 2).

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

Source: Marc Berman@TVMediaInsights