Ratings: The Voice 14 defeats American Idol 16 in first showdown

Monday night marked the first ratings showdown of the season between The Voice 14 and American Idol 16 … and the results were more or less precisely what we thought that they could be.

The Voice ended up reigning supreme on the night with a 2.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic. While this is down slightly from the show’s performance last week (it makes sense given that it is up against another singing show), NBC still has to be pretty happy with the overall performance. Meanwhile, American Idol 16 ended up posting a 1.8. That is down a pretty massive 33% from the show’s premiere number on Sunday, but that’s not a shock for a couple of different reasons. For starters, numbers always fall for singing shows after their premieres; beyond just that, American Idol had so much more competition on Monday than it did on Sundays.

Here is the biggest problem that the series faces in the weeks to come — in order for the series to be considered a big success for ABC, its ratings can’t stand to fall too much more than that. We’ve already reported that ABC, including DVR measurements, is expecting a benchmark of around a 1.8 for the remainder of the season. That does mean that there is some pressure with this show. You also have to remember the huge amount of money that ABC has poured into the show, spending tens of millions on the judging panel and also Ryan Seacrest.

We’ll see how things fared over the course of the coming weeks; that is something that could prove to be interesting just on the basis of fatigue. That tends to happen with many reality shows as their seasons progress and it could very well here.

Good news for The Good Doctor

Following one of its recent low-rated outings, the Freddie Highmore series has bounced back with an impressive 1.8 rating that matched its lead-in. Even with a season 2 renewal already in the can it’s still great news.

Related – Check out some highlights from Sunday night’s American Idol

Do you think that the ratings for American Idol 16 and The Voice 14 are going to be the same the rest of the year? Share right now in the attached comments!

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