It’s a ratings war and executive producers are scrambling to screen the biggest episodes of their respective seasons. Last night we reported, “The X-Factor went up against The Voice’s strong third season. In this, the first ratings war of the new television trimester, The X-Factor unfortunately lost out to The Voice in viewership figures. The Voice drew 10.7 million viewers during its episode and The X-Factor drew only 7.5 million viewers during its first hour. Both shows were expected to lose one point from their respective ratings, mostly due to competing against one another in the same time slot. In The X-Factor’s defense, it was a new season with brand new judges and viewers are a bit nitpicky when it comes to new faces. The Voice, however, had some of its most memorable contestants in the history of the series last night, so we hand it to Mark Burnett for bringing the weapons of mass destruction. The X-Factor tied up with The Voice during its second hour, when The Voice’s third blind auditions finished and the episode came to a close. The X-Factor was unfortunately down by 21% compared to its first season premiere.” The final adjustments are in and Celeb Dirty Laundry is now able to bring you the official numbers.
During Wednesday night’s premiere broadcasting hour, The X-Factor USA did not only lose out to The Voice during its first hour, but also lost out to America’s Got Talent on NBC during its second hour of airing, whereas X-Factor went up by 2 million to reach a total of 9.5 million viewers during its second hour, it was still far behind the America’s Got Talent finale – which drew 11 million viewers to watch Olate Dogs walk away with the title. The X-Factor took the lead in the 18-49 demographic during its second hour, where The Voice took the lead in the same demographic during its airing from 8pm – 9pm. X-Factor had to go up against familiar television shows during its first hour, such as Big Brother on CBS (6.1 million), The Middle rerun on ABC (3.7 million) and Oh Sit! on The CW (930 000). The Simon Cowell produced X-Factor suffered a ratings hit during its premiere hour, but luckily gained a considerable amount of viewers who tuned in to the show after The Voice finished. In contrast, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was the top original program during Wednesday’s cable airing on TLC and garnered 2.2 million viewers.
Thursday night, The X-Factor’s second audition episode was a lead-in to Glee’s premiere fourth season, which aired immediately after The X-Factor on Fox in its new Thursday time slot. The reason for the time slot change, according to Fox executives, is due to the show “maturing”. Well, what does this mean in television land? Firstly, Glee is not the phenomenon it used to be – the third season lost 13 percent in average viewers since its second season and stagnated on 8 million average viewers during its third season. Secondly, this is to be expected from a television show that enters its fourth season run, as the networks need to make place for new programming and move their hits to different time slots to aid in the appeal of the show. Lastly, we all know Glee needed a bit of help after its second and third season decline. What will happen to Glee? Will its Thursday time slot be the death slot? Will it be able to draw its regular fan base and also include X-Factor shared viewership? Glee paired with American Idol during its previous seasons and received some of the highest ratings to date, so The X-Factor might just be what Glee needs to re-establish itself as a television juggernaut. The final adjusted ratings have not been revealed, but according to TV by the Numbers, the predicted rating will lie in the same area as its third season premiere. Celeb Dirty Laundry will bring you the final numbers during the Glee Season 4 premiere review.
There you have it. It seems The Voice is the winner of this premiere season week, with The X-Factor not trailing too far behind. It will be up to the executive producers of the respective shows to deliver the greatest seasons ever. Whichever way it might fall, the viewers’ strengths are played to in the best way possible – they want you to watch, so they’ll be bringing out the biggest seasons yet.
Let us know in the comments below which show you were watching on Wednesday night.
