Tv Ratings, Reality Show | featured news

The second week of NBC’s singing competition, “The Voice,” snagged more than 16 million viewers Monday from 8 to 10 p.m. — the time slot in which the network had averaged a measly 5.6 million viewers this season.

How many singing competition shows can America watch each week? That’s the question being asked now that NBC’s “The Voice” has started its second season with a bang, while Fox’s long-running “American Idol” has seen its ratings decline. “It’s still very early on for ‘The Voice,' but they got a great start coming out of the Super Bowl with 37.6 million viewers,” media analyst Brad Adgate of Horizon Media told Fox411.com. “The most watched ‘American Idol’ was the finale between Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard in 2003, with a little over 38 million viewers.”

The Kim Kardashian, Kris Humphries divorce has become a bitter fight, and we've learned Kris' lawyer intends to put reality TV on trial ... but that could blow up in his face. Sources tell us ... Kris and his lawyer, Lee Hutton, want to "expose the M.O. of reality TV" by proving Kim had no intention of staying married to him, but just wanted big ratings for her reality show.

At first glance, the numbers look bad: "American Idol's" season premiere was down nearly 5 million viewers from last year's, the biggest season-to-season drop in franchise history. At second glance, the numbers don't look bad at all: "AI" was Wednesday's dominant show, averaging 21.6 million, per estimates, and scoring a still-huge, if diminished, 7.4 demo rating among 18-to-49-year-olds.

Fox carried over its winning ways and ratings gains from the American Idol finale on Wednesday to the season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance on Thursday. The two-hour opener (3.2/10 in 18-49, 9.1 million viewers) was up 7% in 18-49 and 11% in viewers from last summer's premiere. It was the most watched SYTYCD premiere in 4 years and highest rated in 3 years.

He was a little bit country; she was a little bit country. Scotty McCreery, the 17-year-old from Garner, N.C., won, but the real competition wasn’t between him and fellow Southerner Lauren Alaina, 16, of Rossville, Ga. All along, the contest was between “American Idol” past and “American Idol” present. It turned out that even after 10 seasons, with fewer frills and a different cast of judges, the ratings soared. “American Idol” is indestructible.

Apologies for not filing a rating story earlier, it was a pretty big busy morning in TV news today. With the final ratings for last night in, here are the biggest highlights:
NBC's The Office (3.5/10 in 18-49) was down 17% from last week's episode, which marked the departure of star Steve Carell.

One week can easily be a fluke, but after ratings for "The Voice" rose for Week 2, it can safely be said that NBC has a hit on its hands. The singing talent show added viewers, particularly young viewers, for its second airing and helped NBC split the first Tuesday of May Sweeps with CBS.

Reality dominated the broadcast landscape last night with four hours of original unscripted fare vs. 3 of first-run scripted programming. The penultimate episode of CBS' Survivor: Nicaragua (3.5/11 in 18-49, 12.4 million viewers) was the top program in the adult demo for the night. It was down a tenth from last week while hitting a season high in total viewers.

Sarah Palin hit two home runs Monday when her new TV reality series set a ratings record for TLC and a mash-up word she made famous was named "word of the year" by the New Oxford American Dictionary.