TV Ratings: 'The Voice' Finale Drops 20 Percent From 2016
NBC leads the night but year-to-year fatigue for its singing show is apparent.
The Voice hasn't been the No. 1 reality show for some time. Earlier in 2017, honors briefly went to ABC's The Bachelor before NBC summer flagship America's Got Talent blew them both out of the water. But even as it shows signs of age, the singing show remains a winner and point of pride for NBC.
Tuesday's live finale of The Voice averaged a 2.0 rating among adults 18-49 and 10.8 million viewers. In the younger demo, that's steady with the most recent finale in the spring. Compared with last December, when the episode didn't air so close to Christmas, it's a 20 percent dip. With live-plus-seven day lifts, the entire season of The Voice was actually down by the same measure from the 2016 fall cycle.
Sure, The Voice's average 2.7 rating among adults 18-49 this season is nothing to shake a stick at. But it's that ratings are so modest, compared with the past, on the eve of two other networks making big swings in the space — Fox, with its event competition The Four, and ABC, with its pricey American Idol reboot.
Nothing held a Christmas candle to NBC on Tuesday night, doubling its closest competition in the key demo, on a lineup littered with holiday specials and repeats. The No. 2 telecast of the night was actually a Voice recap, which managed a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49 at 8 p.m. That was during the same hour where ABC offered up Olaf's Frozen Adventure yet again. The animated short is cuming big numbers after its latest outing, one that averaging a 1.0 rating in the key demo.
Elsewhere, ABC aired news special The Year: 2017 (0.8 adults) and CBS dropped A Home for the Holidays With Josh Groban (0.6 adults).
