Ratings: ‘The Bachelorette’ down from Emily Maynard premiere; ‘The Voice’ hits low

Let this be a lesson to all future network TV programmers who seem for whatever reason to have not gotten the memo already. Debuting your shows on Memorial Day is a terrible idea. While some people may be starting to settle in for the week, others are too busy going out and eating barbecue until all hours of the night to really worry about what’s on TV.

With that in mind, we present to you the lowest-rated premiere of “The Bachelorette” ever. Desiree Hartsock’s first episode drew just a 1.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic, down pretty sharply from the premiere of Emily Maynard’s season last year, which had “Dancing with the Stars” as a lead-in. It’s also a steep drop from Sean Lowe’s “Bachelor” season early this year.

There are two things that we have to blame for this drop right now: The holiday, and also the fact that this is the first season of the show to really have to compete with “The Voice” since the start of the singing show. We expect the ratings to rise in the weeks ahead, especially when DVR figures are available. We can’t imagine that the appetite for cheesy fights and men with abs has sunk this much in the past few months.

“The Voice” also suffered on Memorial Day, drawing an okay 3.1 that still marks a series low for the show. We blame the holiday partially for this, but also the fact that there’s no real controversy or buzz surrounding the contestants this season, even if some of them are good. The one positive that “Revolution” can take here is that it continued to draw a 1.9, and did not fall thanks to the holiday. The negative? It didn’t have any real competition at all this week with “Castle” and “Hawaii Five-0” being off the air.

Are you surprised by these numbers at all? If you want to read our full review of “The Bachelorette” premiere,be sure to visit the link here.

Photo: ABC