#March Madness Wins, But How Did ‘American Idol’ Do Opposite ‘The Voice’?

Unsurprisingly, March Madness on CBS took home the win Monday, March 23, in the key demo among adults 18-49 (1.2 rating), according to Nielsen, though its rating and viewership did both drop from hour to hour, especially between the 8/7c and 9/8c slots.

But it was The Voice‘s first hour, at 8/7c on NBC, that brought in the most viewers, with 6.8 million tuning in (versus the 5 million that watched basketball). That, however, is down from last week. There was also a significant drop — over 1.5 million viewers — between the two hours for the singing competition.

American Idol made its Monday night debut in The Bachelor‘s time slot on ABC and was down significantly from the dating competition’s finale last week (1.5 rating, 6.1 million viewers versus 0.7 rating, 4.8 million viewers). Idol was also down from its Sunday night episode this week.

For the rest of the night’s new programming, The Good Doctor was steady with its last outing (on March 8), Debris lost some viewers between weeks, and America’s Most Wanted and Bulletproof were steady with last week’s episodes.

Here’s the breakdown for Monday, March 22, 2021 (numbers are fast-affiliate based):

Time	Show	Adults 18-49 Rating	Total Viewers (millions)
8 p.m.	American Idol (ABC)	0.7	4.8
	NCAA Basketball Championship (CBS)	1.5	6.2
	The Voice (NBC)	0.9	6.8
	9-1-1 (Fox)	0.4	2.5
	Bulletproof (CW)	0.1	529,000
9:00 p.m.	American Idol (ABC)	0.7	4.8
	NCAA Basketball Championship (CBS)	1.2	5.0
	The Voice (NBC)	0.7	5.0
	America’s Most Wanted (Fox)	0.4	2.0
	Black Lightning (CW)	0.1	293,000
10 p.m.	The Good Doctor (ABC)	0.5	4.2
	NCAA Basketball Championship (CBS)	1.0	3.8
	Debris (NBC)	0.4	2.8