RATINGS RAT RACE UPDATE: ‘Great Christmas Light Fight’ Falls, ‘The Voice’ & ‘Sleepy Hollow’ Rise
UPDATE, 2:14 PM: Looks like it was that NFL game out of the Windy City pumping up the energy on The Great Christmas Light Fight last night. With final numbers in, the new short-term ABC holiday series shorted out from the 1.8/4 of fast nationals to a 1.4/4. That fall makes Light Fight the network’s lowest-rated Monday midseason debut ever as it now “beats” the 1.8 of the November 21, 2011, debut of You Deserve It. On the other hand, as the Light went out, The Voice and Sleepy Hollow both bopped up. The NBC competition show went up to a 3.5/10 from this morning’s 3.4/9. That leaves The Voice now up 3% from the Monday lows it has hit recently. In its last show of 2013, the Fox freshman went up to a tenth to 2.2/6 to now be even with its last original of November 25.
PREVIOUSLY, 9:12 AM: With just over two weeks before the big day, the Christmas shows and specials are piling up under the TV tree.
ABC put out the big present on Monday night with the premiere of The Great Christmas Light Fight (1.8/4) at 9 PM. However, Light Fight was challenged in its slot with the return of The Sing-Off (2.4/6) on NBC. Back for a short fourth cycle with Jewel joining Shawn Stockman, Ben Folds and returning host Nick Lachey as a new judge for the reality competition series for a cappella groups, last night’s debut at 9:02 PM was up 26% from its last premiere back on September 19, 2011. In fact, Monday’s almost two-hour Season 4 debut is the best the sometimes unsteady Sing-Off has performed since the 2.7/7 it pulled for its Season 2 ender almost three years ago on December 20, 2010. Still, even with a two-minute spillover, The Sing-Off saw a 29% falloff from its lead-in The Voice (3.4/9) last night. Ahead of tonight’s double elimination, the other singing competition show was down to the final five in its live one-hour semi-final performance broadcast but held steady with last week’s Monday season low. The Voice was the highest-rated and most watched show of the night with 12.85 million tuning in. Overall the singing voices won the night for NBC with a 2.8/7 rating and 9.856 million viewers. Fox was No. 2 in the demo with a 2.0/5 rating while ABC was second in viewership with 6.506 million watching.
Related: Fox Expands ‘Sleepy Hollow’ Finale & Shifts ‘The Following’ Official Premiere By A Week
On Fox, freshman Almost Human (1.8/5) had its second to last episode of the fall last night and a slight rise after three weeks in a row of decline. The JJ Abrams-produced series bopped up 6% over last week among the key demo. On the other hand, with its last show of 2013, Sleepy Hollow (2.1/5) slipped 5% from its last original on November 25. Sleepy Hollow will return on January 13 and have its two-hour season finale on January 20.
Monday saw strong competition overall from the Chicago Bears and the Dallas Cowboys match-up on ESPN Monday Night Football, which was up slightly from last week’s game with a 11.0 metered markets result. The game pre-empted ABC’s line-up in the Chicago area so expect greater than usual adjustment in the final numbers later today. With that in mind, the self explanatory five-episode $50,000 prize series judged by the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team kicked off its three Monday run up 50% among adults 18-49 over the EM:HE on the same night in 2012. While Light Fight actually gave the network its best December results in the time slot in five years, the show’s 1.8 was tied with the November 21, 2011 debut of You Deserve It for ABC’s lowest-rated midseason premiere ever. Light Fight’s lead-in was this year’s broadcast of Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town (1.7/5), which even with last year’s results.
The only originals on CBS last night were Mike & Molly (2.0/5) at 9PM and Hostages (1.1/3) at 10PM. The former was down 17% to hit a Monday low while the newbie latter was even with last week.
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