Ratings: 'The Voice' Has Lowest Premiere Ever, 'Gotham' Debuts Strong - 09/23/2014

The Big Bang Theory is Monday night's big winner as some of network TV's biggest shows returned for new seasons, while new shows premiered to varying audiences. However, the big news here is the decline of one of the few hits on which NBC depends...

The Voice returned for Season 7 with 12.7 million viewers for a 3.9 rating. This is a series low for a premiere episode, as the rating represents a 23 percent decline from last fall's premiere. Moreover, this rating is considerably less than the show's February premiere numbers, as the Season 6 premiere brought in 15.9 million viewers for a 4.7 rating. Is it the beginning of the decline for The Voice? Or will the rating grow as the season progresses? It's hard to tell, given the sheer volume of competition on Monday nights this season. I suppose we'll know for sure once live shows begin.

That said, it wasn't all bad news for NBC, as The Blacklist returned for Season 2 with its second-best demo rating ever. The show notched 12.5 million viewers for a 3.4 rating, which is only a 10 percent decline from its series premiere last year, suggesting that the show really hasn't lost much of its audience from Season 1 the way that some hit freshman dramas tend to. Of course, NBC apparently still has plans to move the show to Thursdays at midseason to make room for the Katherine Heigl drama State of Affairs, because NBC never met a bad idea they didn't like. There's a very real possibility that NBC will erode this show's viewership with the time change in much the same way they killed Revolution with stupid scheduling practices. Then again, maybe NBC has evidence to support the notion that The Blacklist audience will be loyal enough to follow it to Thursdays. But it's hard not to view this as NBC potentially killing off their biggest drama hit in ages.

As for the big winner of the night, CBS had a hell of a Monday...

The one-hour season premiere of The Big Bang Theory won the night with 17.9 million total viewers for a 5.3 demo rating, giving CBS an edge over the competition, as the comedy was able to boost the numbers of everything else in the lineup. Procedural newcomer Scorpion debuted strong thanks to its Big Bang lead-in, raking in 14 million viewers for a 3.3 demo rating, a significant increase over the 7.5 million viewers Hostages averaged on Monday nights last season. The strong performance of Scorpion carried over into the 10:00 PM time slot, as the season two finale of Under the Dome saw a 9 percent increase over last week, averaging 7.6 million viewers and a 1.8 rating.

However, not all the glory belonged to CBS alone: FOX has a winner on their hands with Gotham, which debuted to an impressive 8 million viewers and a 3.2 rating. Not only is this better than the 7.8 million viewers that Bones delivered last year in the same time slot, it's also the best Monday night 8:00 PM series launch since Prison Break in 2005. The show, for which Netflix negotiated the exclusive streaming rights, will be a surefire bet for a second season if it manages to remain steady. And if it's able to grow? Hell, it might just become FOX's centerpiece drama. At the very least, it's a damn good show.

Unfortunately, the success of Gotham didn't really carry over into the season premiere of last year's surprise hit, Sleepy Hollow: the season two premiere brought in 5.5 million viewers and a 2.0 rating, which is down significantly from the 10 million-viewer debut from last year, and less than the 6.9 million-viewer finale in January. Of course, the plus side to all this is that Sleepy Hollow is one of the stronger DVR performers on TV, so this number should increase somewhat.

Over at ABC, it was a good news/bad news situation: Dancing With the Stars saw a 17 percent decline in its demographic and a 12 percent decline in total viewership, as the latest episode brought in 12 million viewers and a 2.0 demo rating. However, the show was able to give a bit of a bump to procedural drama Forever, which had its sneak peek debut after the live performance show. The drama outdrew the Under the Dome finale by bringing in 8.3 million viewers for a 1.5 rating. So Monday was mostly a good night for ABC. It was also a decent night for The CW, as America's Next Top Model gained in total viewers while remaining steady in the demographic, with 1.2 million viewers and a 0.4 rating.

In short, every network had its wins and losses, making this an interesting first week of the 2014-2015 broadcast season.

Via: TVLine

Credit: Trae Patton/NBC