Maybe people should stop picking fights with The Voice. According to the ratings reports at The Futon Critic, The Voice beat the first hour of the premiere of FOX’s The X Factor, with 10.66 million viewers to X Factor‘s 7.45 (that’s a difference of more than 2 million if you don’t want to do math). The Voice also won the uber-coveted 18 to 49-year-old demographic, with a 3.3 to The X Factor‘s 2.7.
It’s worth noting that in the second hour, when it aired against the finale of America’s Got Talent, The X Factor was up sharply to the tune of 9.49 million viewers – so both programs in general are drawing comparable numbers of viewers. (America’s Got Talent, however, was the most-watched program of the night with just over 11 million eyeballs.) This is a nice victory for NBC, whose strategy to counter-program Voice against its competition clearly worked.
It’s too early to judge if The Voice‘s ratings are really holding up in the fall versus the spring season; last season’s premiere scored over 50 million eyeballs in the first hour, but that’s because it aired on a Sunday following the Super Bowl, which drew about 101 million viewers. The next night, on Monday, The Voice‘s time slot premiere drew a more sane 17.69 and a 6.6 in the key demographic.
Yeah, I seriously pondered whether to try out the 2nd hour of X-Factor…but I just couldn’t rouse any interest within myself to watch the bad singers. I get another shot at it, tonight. We’ll see.