LOS ANGELES -- The Voice's post-Super Bowl premiere (37.6 million viewers) on Sunday boosted its time-slot debut in Monday night's NBC lineup to a big (nearly 18 million) viewers.
Though these numbers were not enough to catch American Idol, it was substantially above X Factor's premiere that drew 12.5 million on Sept. 21, 2011, which had no similar lead-in.
ABC's Bachelor was steady.
The debut of Smash was very solid, if unspectacular, with 11.5 million viewers. On the negative side, it retained just 60% of viewers from The Voice's second hour (and just 51% of young adults). And the audience dropped by 2.5 million viewers at the 10:30 mark (12.7 million to 10.3 million), which is not a great sign.
USA Today