Though “The Voice” hit a season low for a Monday, NBC easily won the primetime ratings race on Memorial Day.
According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, “The Voice” (3.1 rating/9 share among viewers 18-49, 10.9 million overall) came in below last week’s previously established Monday season-low rating of 3.5. Nevertheless, it easily outdistanced its closest competition, ABC’s “The Bachelorette” (1.9/5, 5.8 million), which dropped more than 25% in 18-49 rating from last year’s premiere to its worst ever.
Typically, the “Bachelorette” premiere is boosted by the “Dancing With the Stars” season finale, but the two were separated by a week this year. Compared with Memorial Day 2012, “Bachelorette” gained 2% in overall viewers and was even in 18-49. The program posted ABC’s best summer numbers from 8-10 p.m. on a Monday since July 16.
With viewership increasing every halfhour, “The Voice,” did help “Revolution” (1.9/5, 6.5 million) achieve week-to-week improvement and win the 10 p.m. timeslot for the Peacock, ahead of runner-up “20/20: Bringing Up Baby” (1.3/4, 5.6 million) for ABC.
CBS was third on the night among English-language broadcasters with a spate of reruns: “How I Met Your Mother” (0.9/3, 3.6 million), “Rules of Engagement” (0.9/2, 3.7 million, “2 Broke Girls” (1.0/3, 4.2 million) and “Mike and Molly” (1.2/3, 4.7 million).
Fox surrounded a new episode of burnoff series “The Goodwin Games” (0.6/2, 1.4 million) at 8:30 p.m. with repeats of “Raising Hope” (0.7/2, 1.8 million), “New Girl” (0.6/2, 1.3 million) and “The Mindy Project” (0.6/1, 1.3 million). The CW aired the movie “Memorial Day” (0.4/1, 1.5 million).
Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: NBC 2.7/7, ABC 1.7/5, Univision 1.4, CBS 1.1/3, Fox 0.6/2, CW 0.4/1.
In total viewers: NBC 9.4 million, ABC 5.8 million, CBS 4.4 million, Univision 3.4 million, Fox 2.4 million, CW 1.5 million.
