Nellie Andreeva

During an earnings call early this morning, Comcast chairman and CEO Roberts called last week’s premiere of NBC’s new reality series The Voice “maybe the most exciting event” for the company since the Comcast-NBCU merger. There certainly will be even more excitement at NBCUniversal today as, in its second episode, the singing competition series built on its very impressive premiere performance in both adults 18-49 and total viewers. Last night, the two-hour The Voice drew a 5.6/14 in 18-49 from 9-11 PM, up 10% from last week’s premiere, and 12.4 million viewers overall, up 5%. The Voice, already holding the honors for the highest-rated new series premiere this season, became the first new series on the Big 4 this season to grow from its first week to the second in 18-49 or total viewers. It was by far the top-ranked program of the night in 18-49, ahead of Fox’s Glee (3.6/10) and CBS’ NCIS (3.5/10). With The Biggest Loser: Couples (2.6/8) at 8 PM flat, NBC (4.6/12, 10.7 million viewers) dominated the night in 18-49. After last week’s season low with its 90-minute episode last week, Fox’s Glee rebounded a bit, up 6%. Raising Hope (1.9/5) was flat with its fast national from last week (up a tenth from the series low final rating), while Traffic Light (1.2/3) was down a tenth.

After failing to post gains with its action-packed April 12 election episode, it was a nice surprise to see CBS’ drama The Good Wife (2.4/8) posting a 20% gain in its first original outing since that cliffhanger episode. Even more impressively, The Good Wife popped despite its lead-in, NCIS: LA (2.9/7), being down 12% from April 12 for a season low. This was The Good Wife‘s best showing since October. Note to CBS’ scheduling gurus: Don’t put The Good Wife against NBC’s Parenthood. The serialized legal drama was doing great in the slot before NBC put its family series there, and its big ratings bump last night despite airing against the highly rated The Voice shows that there is too big of an audience overlap with Parenthood to ignore. At 8 PM, CBS’ NCIS (3.5/10, 17.3 million) was down 10% in the demo for a season low but still ranked as the most-watched program of the night. CBS (2.9/8, 14.5 million) was tops for the night in total viewers. Following a Dancing With the Stars recap, the Dancing with the Stars result show (2.9/7) was down 19% from last week. Body of Proof (2.0/5) was down 9% to tie its low in the Tuesday slot.

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