TV Ratings: ‘Bachelor’ Finale Deflates ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and ‘The Voice’

The Bachelor ended its season with high ratings on Monday night, jumping almost a full point from last week for a 3.2 rating among adults 18-49. That’s down three-tenths of a point from the comparable finale last year, but the After the Final Rose special (3.8 adults) held even.

ABC’s Bachelor block helped the network edge past NBC in the key demo for the night, winning with an average 3.4 rating. The network placed second with total viewers, averaging 10.1 million.

STORY: CBS Sets Summer Schedule

For every action there tends to be an equal and opposite reaction — and The Voice took its first big hit of the season up against The Bachelor finale. An average 3.7 rating, down eight-tenths of a point from last Monday, was still enough to top its direct competition. The 10 p.m. Bachelor special outranked The Voice to top the Big Four for the night.

Midseason freshman Believe, with a smaller than typical Voice lead-in, averaged a 2.7 rating among adults 18-49 in its premiere. That sampling matched The Blacklist in the same hour last week. NBC topped the night in viewers with 12.6 million and averaged a 3.3 rating in the demo.

How I Met Your Mother also tumbled against The Bachelor. With an average 2.7 adults rating, the comedy was down six-tenths of a point from last week. A lead-in from a 2 Broke Girls repeat did not help Mike & Molly. The comedy dropped four-tenths to a series low. Intelligence (1.3 adults) improved a tenth, giving CBS an average 1.6 rating among adults 18-49 and 6.6 million viewers for the night.

PHOTOS: 2014’s New Broadcast and Cable Series

Fox saw Bones head back to Monday with a 1.7 rating among adults 18-49. That’s up a tenth from its last Friday showing — but down four-tenths of a point from when it last aired on Monday. The Following, recently picked up for a third season, hit a series low 1.5 rating in the demo. Fox averaged a 1.6 rating among adults 18-49 and 5.9 million viewers.

On The CW, Star-Crossed (0.3 adults) and Beauty and the Beast (0.2 adults) both dropped by a tenth of a point. The network averaged a 0.2 rating and 926,000 viewers.