Fox Acquires ‘Narc’; Zac Efron Attached To Play … 
ABC’s ‘Nashville’ Undergoes Production … 
CBS Wins Season & Ties Sweep In Demo; ABC Tops Adults … 
Mike Lobell Adds Cast To ‘Eisner,’ Plots … 
Sony Shares Rise On Report That It Will Consider … 
Alki David Agrees To End Name Games With Aereo And Barry … 
Next-Gen Xbox One Unveiled With Content Including … 
UPDATE: Apple CEO Challenged For Moving “Crown … 
CAA Signs ‘Robocop’ Joel Kinnaman 
Cannes: Fleming Q&A With Steven Soderbergh: … 
ESPN Layoffs Could Reach 400 As Part Of Latest Disney Cuts 
UPDATE: Broadcast Nets Expand Nightly News For Tornado … 
Cannes: Weinstein Co Acquires Keanu-Reese Sci-Fi Pic … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Up … 
Hot Trailer: ‘The Wolverine’ 
Ric Robertson Taking Paid Summer Hiatus From Movie Academy … 
Obama Scandals Bring MSNBC 7-Year Low While Fox News Rises 
Season Finale Of CBS’ ‘Mike & Molly’ … 
Ang Lee Departs FX Pilot ‘Tyrant’ 
DreamWorks Eyes January For ‘Glimmer’ And Dylan … 
Warner Bros TV & ‘Smallville’ Co-Creators … 
And we’re off. In the first major premiere of the season, NBC’s The Voice last night opened its third season with a 4.1 rating/11 share in adults 18-49. In today’s broadcast universe that is a respectable number; for ratings-challenged NBC, it could be a cause for celebration. But by major talent competition standards, especially for a young series like The Voice, it is just OK. Of course that was way down from last season’s Super Bowl-inflated Voice opener. But it was also down from the series’ series debut in April 2011 (5.1/13). Additionally, The Voice was down 7% from last season’s finale. (And keep in mind, the show is usually front-loaded, with its blind auditions garnering the highest ratings.) Facing Monday Night Football for the first time in its run, it was a tenth behind the series debut of Fox’s The X Factor (4.2/12) last fall. The two music competition shows are set to clash head-to-head on Wednesday.
Related: ‘Katie’ Leads Talk Show Newcomers, Ties For Best Daytime Talker Debut In 10 Years
Following The Voice premiere, a preview of new comedy The New Normal (2.5/6) got some decent sampling but was more in line with the 2010 preview of the short-lived drama Outlaw (2.4/7) than that of comedy Up All Night (3.7/10) last year. Both had smaller lead-ins from the America’s Got Talent finale. Given the fact that The Voice premiere is probably the best lead-in NBC can offer a show this season, it will be interesting to see whether the comedy can at least hold on to its preview number in its time-slot premiere tonight following Matthew Perry’s new comedy Go On, which has the post-Voice slot. A repeat of the Go On pilot (1.8/5) closed out last night, which NBC won in adults 18-49 and total viewers.
Elsewhere last night, networks were wrapping summer business. Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen (2.5/7) and MasterChef (2.6/6) finales were both down a tenth from last Tuesday’s episodes and from last year’s finales. ABC’s Bachelor Pad finale (1.3/3) was down 7% from last week and 35% from last year’s closer to log its lowest-rated finale against increased competition. CBS aired mostly repeats.
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Oh, this is still a thing? Maybe we should just combine all these so-called talent shows into one giant mess.
Call it “Idolize the Voice that Thinks it Can Survive Dancing with its Celebrity Big Brother”.
New Normal =’ed Not Funny =s Not Surprising
Another NBC fail! Can’t wait for the return of Whitney (sarcasm).
The difference between the Voice and American Idol is that when Idol first began it had upwards of 25 million plus, and now, its audience is at best in the high teens of millions.
The Voice has a maximum audience of about about 12 million. So, the good news for the Voice is… as it starts its downward march…it won’t have anywhere near the distance to plunge as Idol does.
Both shows have peaked and the question is how long will they be profitable with smaller numbers?
Certainly, both will continue to prosper…but less and less year over year. Of course, NBC may actually hasten the demise of the Voice through overkill.
I thought The New Normal was good. Although I hope they tone the Ellen Barkin character down a bit.
I thought Barkin was the best thing about the show. Andrew Rannells was great in The Book of Mormon , but hes no so good in this. Unless it gets better. Sometimes first episodes are awful and inprove
Voice is fun but NBC blowing its wad with 3 nights first week. Starting to smell the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” desperation. A network with nothing just shoveling its only hope at the risk of oversaturation.
From Wikki
After Nielsen took over the contract for producing data on Irish advertising in 2009, agencies said that they were “disastrous” and claimed that the information produced by them is too inaccurate to be trusted by them or their clients
Why are we?
I tried watching “The New Normal” and, though the writing wasn’t as bad as I anticipated, the “funny” jokes were few and far between.
But, like all the other gay couples that have made their way into TV sitcoms/dramas (“Desperate Housewives”, “Modern Family”, “Brothers & Sisters”, etc.), why do they still have to resemble a “normal” heterosexual relationship with clearly defined male and female counterparts?
I have seen enough gay relationships, in which neither partner is effeminate (or both are), to know that this TV image continues to perpetuate the misconception that every intimate relationship must have a male/female representation. And, in the case of “The New Normal”, coming from a gay producer/writer no less.
I suppose this is the gay couple made palatable for straight audiences.
Wake up, America! Not every gay male relationship involves a guy who watches sports and a guy who’s all about fashion.
And, as for the protesters, they should be more concerned about the (hetero)sexual content and the language than the fact that the main couple is gay.
Still, Ellen Barkin was amusing.
Watched New Normal based on good reviews but it was a disappointment. Gay couple were so stereotypical. Barkin’s character was so broad and over the top it was just a nasty cartoon. Humor was sparse. The dialogue was just that, not anything real. The bright spot was Georgia King and Bebe Wood. Their relationship was sweet. This is a good cast all around, they just need better material. One last thing, stop the damn shaking camera technique. It serves to no purpose and is just annoying.
Wouldn’t some of the Voice’s drop be attributable to its going head to head with Monday Night Football, which it doesn’t have to do in spring?
Tried to watch the New Normal a few months ago, but felt like the cast were more caricatures than characters. That can work sometimes, but here, it just doesn’t. I thought for sure they’d tone Barkin’s character down some before the premier, but I guess they decided to double down instead.
And seriously, ditch the shaky cam already. It was like The Office lite. You can’t tell me any of the focus groups liked that.
So, as far as summer series are concerned, ABC’s The Bachelorette is the big winner with its 10 million viewers and 3.2 demo rating for its finale. Absolutely amazing that they keep rolling out such big numbers with that franchise.