‘The Voice’ Finale Ratings Down From Last Year
Trae Patton / NBC A lot of people tuned in last Tuesday to see the finale of The Voice. However, not as many as last year’s winter 2016 finale. It seems that in spite of the fact that The Voice‘s contestants were topping the iTunes charts, that did not translate into ratings for NBC.
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The show’s finale on Tuesday received a 1.87 share and 9.85 million viewers. That’s down 20% from last December’s season 11 finale. How can this be if so many people were downloading the songs and voting. The answer is pretty clear. The broadcasting ratings model I learned in TV programming class in college in 2003 does not work in the modern world. The reality is that younger people aren’t watching the show on a TV set when it airs.
They watch it on their mobile devices or computers either streaming or in YouTube clips the next day. Nielsen ratings does not take any of that into account. That means they aren’t taking into account 40-60% of the viewers. This is especially true when you consider that many of The Voice‘s viewers are younger. The same thing is happening in the UK with The X Factor. Unfortunately for the shows that means they aren’t getting the numbers which advertisers like. Of course, The Voice isn’t going anywhere for now so don’t worry.
