Ratings: ‘Dancing with the Stars’ 21 starts off solid; ‘American Ninja Warrior’ has big finale

“Dancing with the Stars” needed to have a big premiere given that they are not airing this year against “The Voice” for their first week, and luckily, they did manage to pull that off for the most part Monday night.

The first show (which you can read our review for over here) drew in total a 2.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic over the two hours, which is down just a tenth from the premiere last fall. Given that the show lost Len Goodman and it continues to age, this is not bad. The fact that the show drew over 13 million viewers is yet another sign of just how old it has a tendency to skew the majority of the time.

Meanwhile, the biggest winner of the night we’d argue is “American Ninja Warrior,” which drew a finale high of 2.0 along with just over 6 million viewers. Clearly, the show skews much younger for NBC, and we figure they have to love it given that it is reasonably cost-effective and great summer counter-programming. They will have “The Voice” back next year.

Next week, things will obviously start to become much more crowded thanks to the premieres of the following shows: “Gotham,” “Minority Report,” “The Voice,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Life in Pieces,” “Scorpion,” “Castle,” “Blindspot,” and “NCIS: Los Angeles.” Clearly, that’s a ton of shows that is going to tilt things significantly. More viewers will be watching network TV, but in the era of so many other options, just how many will actually be interested in taking a look? It’s something we are excited to find out.

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