‘Bachelor’ Finale Ratings Hit Low, ‘Voice’ Steady, ‘Following’ & ‘Jane The Virgin’ Down

It came down to a final two and then a final rose and then a proposal from Chris Soules last night on the Season 19 finale of The Bachelor (2.7/8). Love was obviously in the air, but not in the ratings. Among adults 18-49, last night’s finale saw an 18% drop from the non-proposal Season 18 ender on March 10 last year. That’s an all-time season finale low for The Bachelor. The Season 18 finale was basically steady with the Season 17 ender of 2013, with just an 8% dip. Compared to last week, the ABC series bopped up 4% to hit a season high for the show. Viewershipwise, last night’s Bachelor drew a total audience of 9.5 million. That’s down a 1% touch from the 9.62 million that the S18 finale pulled in.

The Bachelor: After The Final Rose (2.7/8) took even more of dive from last year’s post-series show. The 2015 show was down 29% from the 2014 broadcast – another low. After The Rose fell among viewers too – down to 9.6 million from the 11.00 million who watched on March 10 last year.

Of course, while now engaged, Soules isn’t leaving ABC anytime soon – he’ll be a contestant on Season 20 of Dancing With The Stars. However there was something new announced last night on the romance reality show. For the first time, it will be two of the ladies who didn’t get that big proposal who will be headlining the next season of The Bachelorette. Third placer Kaitlyn Bristowe and sixth placer Britt Nelson will look for love in Season 11 of the spinoff.

The second week of Season 3 of The Following (1.1/3) was down a hard 31% from last week’s premiere on Fox. That’s a series low for the Kevin Bacon starrer. Unlike last week, The Following was out there basically all-alone on Fox’s schedule as its Gotham (0.7/2) lead-in was a repeat.

The top-rated and most watched show of Monday’s primetime was The Voice (3.6/11). Head to head, the singing competition beat The Bachelor finale by 33% despite slipping 8% from last week. That strong effort helped led-out The Night Shift (1.4/4), which remains, even with its Season 3 debut on March 2. With its battle rounds beginning last night, The Voice had a total viewership of 13.52 million. That’s down 7% from last week’s audience of 14.67 million. NBC won the night both among the demo and in viewers with a 2.9/9 rating and 10.945 million watching. ABC was second among the 18-49s with a 2.7/8 while CBS was number #2 in viewers with 9.816 million.

Despite the Bachelor finale and The Voice, CBS’ Monday was basically a steady one for its line-up of originals. 2 Broke Girls (2.0/7) dipped 5% from its last original on February 23 while Mike & Molly (2.0/6) was down 9% from last week. Freshman Scorpion (2.0/6) slipped 5% from its last new show of February 23 to tie its lowest result so far. NCIS: Los Angeles (1/7/5) was the one CBS show to rise with a 6% bop up from its last original of two weeks ago.

Both The Originals (0.5/2) and Jane The Virgin (0.5/1) were back with their first originals since February 16. Unfortunately, it was not a glorious return with both shows down 17%. For The Originals, that’s a match with a series low in preliminary numbers.