Dancing with the Stars judges may have given Monday’s dancers the greatest performance scores ever for a opening, but fans gave the show its lowest Nielsen ratings ever for a first appearance episode.
The ratings fall is not really a revelation. The veteran reality show returned up against NBC’s fresher reality hit The Voice, and lacked buzz-worthy tabloid names this spring (Katherine Jenkins, William Levy, Melissa Gilbert, yawn… the covert to casting Dancing is having hot-button names like Bristol Palin, The condition, Nancy Grace and Chaz Bono, celebrities that a huge number of Americans have strong feelings about, positive or negative).
Dancing delivered 18.5 million viewers and a 3.5 rating in the adult demo, down 34 percent from last coil and off 13 percent from last fall. At least the two-hour Dancing helped boost Castle (16.3 million, 2.4) up 14 percent, but that wasn’t pretty enough to win 10 p.m.
The big winner last night was The Voice (11.8 million, 4.5 — and, yes, as always, we’re going off the adult demo here because that’s what advertisers and networks, whether we like it or not, base their choices on; clearly among viewers of a certain age, Dancing was more admired). The Voice has held up strong overall during its clash rounds so far and easily crushed Dancing, though last night’s episode slipped 13 percent. Smash (6.7 million, 2.3) was down 4 percent.
CBS tied ABC for second position, its comedy block rising slightly in the first hour, declining a tad in the second hour: HIMYM (8.2 million, 3.4), 2 Broke Girls (9.2 million, 3.4), Two and a Half Men (11.3 million, 3.8), and Mike & Molly (9.8 million, 3.2). Hawaii Five-0 (9.1 million, 2.5) was steady.
Fox’s House (5.8 million, 2.0) was down 17 percent, while Alcatraz (5.1 million, 1.5) slipped another six percent. I could see Fox maybe taking a possibility on Alcatraz for a Friday slot next fall, but even that might be a lengthy shot at this point.
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