Ratings: ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ defeats Carson Daly; Pitbull show improves for Fox

We’re not going to even pretend that there was that much of a battle between New Year’s Eve broadcasts on network TV last night, mostly because it is a slaughter year in and yet out.

The big winner was of course “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” which according to Deadline, drew a boffo 7.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic from 11:30 p.m. Eastern time until 1:15 a.m., right after Central time zone residents got a chance to enjoy the new year in their own way. This more than doubled any of the network competition.

The winner in the midst of the competition was probably Fox, given that “Pitbull’s New Year’s Revolution” did improve in its second year. Starting when the show returned after the local news, the special drew a 2.7 rating, a solid improvement that shows that this Miami event is something that they may want to continue to revisit. We also think Fox is making a right move here by continuing to invite many young stars to perform here, that way you are catering to a demo that is right in your sweet spot. You get some of that with “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” getting One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer on their roster, but they performed before it was close to midnight.

As for who was a little less successful, it goes back to Carson Daly. NBC waited until 11:30 p.m. to begin their show featuring “The Voice” host, but even still its ratings were down. A 2.7 rating is even with Pitbull, but we have to imagine that there were some higher expectations here given that this has been around a while.