Abc, Nbc | featured news

Two popular reality shows made a splash upon their re-entry during the past week – and a new one had a strong debut. A new episode of "Dancing With the Stars" premiered on ABC last week before 17 million viewers, just behind CBS drama "NCIS" as the week's most popular program. It was down to 14.5 million Monday night, facing competition from the return of "The Voice" on NBC.

NBC is changing the backstage leadership at its struggling "Today" show, which has consistently been behind ABC's "Good Morning America" in the ratings since replacing Ann Curry as an anchor this summer.

There was lots of good news on Monday night, as "The Voice" and "Dancing with the Stars" both saw week-to-week growth and helped carry NBC and ABC to their regular Monday split.

Want to reach ultra conservatives? Advertise your message or candidate on ESPN’s college football regular season, NBC’s “Today with Kathie Lee & Hoda,” or ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.” Need to talk to Super Democrats? Say it on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” or NBC’s faux-latenight-show comedy “30 Rock.”

Following a flurry of rumors, the network confirmed Tuesday that it will move "Jimmy Kimmel Live" earlier by one half-hour, to 11:35, starting Jan. 8. That will put it in direct competition with NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman" for a three-way ratings brawl.

NBC won the night among adults 18-49 and in total viewers with 31.42 million watching. Meanwhile, ABC had a two-hour new Bachelor Pad (1.1/3), followed by a new The Glass House (0.6/2) at 10 PM. Bachelor Pad was down 27% from last week for the reality show’s lowest rating ever. The Glass House was down 25% from last week’s show, also hitting its lowest rating to date. On CBS, it was an evening of repeats with How I Met Your Mother (0.9/3), 2 Broke Girls (1.0/3), Two And A Half Men (1.1/3), Mike & Molly (1.1/3) and Hawaii Five-O (0.9/2). Fox had two repeats of Hell’s Kitchen at 8 PM (1.1/3) and 9 PM (1.2/3)

A majority of morning viewers has greeted the arrival of Savannah Guthrie with a yawn in her first week as "Today" show co-anchor.

NBC's "Today" was beaten last week by ABC archrival "Good Morning America" by 357,000 viewers, the Nielson Co. said. "GMA" drew an average of 4.57 million viewers, compared with 4.21 million for "Today," according to preliminary Nielsen figures released Monday. This represents the largest lead by "GMA" over "Today" in more than 17 years, while extending its top-ranked status to three consecutive weeks, ABC said.

After NBC dropped from first among young Monday viewers last week, "The Voice" got a bit of a finale bump and helped the network reclaim that crown. ABC still easily won Monday overall, thanks to "Dancing with the Stars" and a "Castle" finale bump.

CBS procedural repeats and FOX's broadcast of the first "Iron Man" film led the way on a rather sluggish post-holiday Friday night. Among adults 18-49, FOX averaged a 1.2 rating, tops in the key demographic. The other networks were close behind with ABC's 1.1 rating and the 1.0 ratings for CBS and NBC. The CW averaged a 0.4 rating for the night.

CBS continues to dominate Fridays, with solid numbers for "A Gifted Man," "CSI: NY" and "Blue Bloods." It helped that NBC and ABC's slate were largely made up of repeats. "Fringe" rose, while "Supernatural" and "Nikita" saw a slight decline in viewer numbers.