Tuesday’s NCIS winter finale overshadowed The Voice season 17 finale, keeping the TV crime drama on top during the singing competition’s biggest night.
While critics buzzed about The Voice season 17 winner, more people were watching the NCIS midseason finale.
The NBC singing competition got more attention Tuesday as it aired a special two-hour finale where it announced its latest champion, but even that big reveal wasn’t enough to pose a serious threat to the CBS crime drama.
More than 11 million people watched the NCIS episode “The North Pole,” whereas The Voice brought in 8.64 million live viewers. That’s a 2.39 million difference.
The two programs didn’t compete against each other directly—NBC shifts the singing show from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays—but that still says a lot about the audience that the CBS drama is able to command, when it clearly beats out the big pop-culture event of the night.
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“The North Pole” was certainly helped by another return appearance from Cote de Pablo, who reprised her fan favorite role as former agent Ziva David.
The episode was centered around Ziva as well, with the case having a significant connection to her past, so viewers got all the Ziva and Ziva-related material they could have possibly wanted (aside from an on-screen reunion between her and Tony DiNozzo).
But while that big guest spot may have added to the ratings, it’s not the only reason for what we saw on Tuesday.
The Voice appealed to the adults 18-49 demographic, pulling in an impressive 1.3 show that made it the most-watched show if you solely look at that category.
Yet NCIS clearly has a hold on people outside that group, because even with that 1.3, the reality TV finale was more than 2 million viewers behind. And its key demo number wasn’t bad either; with a 1.0 share, it tied for third place with NBC’s Voice recap show (which, airing at 8 p.m., was its direct competitor).
So what’s the big deal? How is this TV crime drama able to steamroll the finale of a multiple Emmy Award-winning singing competition, which was packed with celebrity performances?
Until the other networks can find another series with as broad appeal as CBS has, they’re never going to be able to topple Gibbs and company. NCIS simply has too large of a presence, after 17 seasons and with countless reruns, that it reaches just about everywhere and has something to offer almost everyone.
And with The Voice having finished its season, we’ll have to see what fresh competition NBC has to offer when the series returns in 2020.