'Smash' And 'The Voice' Carry Big Monday For NBC

"The Voice" didn't match its titanic post-Super Bowl ratings, but the returning talent search combined with the debuting "Smash" and overpowered other network offerings Monday night in NBC's name.

Monday's second-season debut for "The Voice" in its regular time slot was watched by 17.7 million viewers, enough for a remarkable 6.6 18-49 adult demo rating - a 60-percent fall from the premiere following Sunday's Giants-Patriots nail-biter, but still making it the night's most watched show. Monday's episode was also NBC's highest rated regular entertainment series telecast in over four years and a 29-percent jump from the show's series premiere, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Though "The Voice" doesn't square off directly against "American Idol" on Monday nights, the back-to-back big numbers must give Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Blake Shelton and Christina Aguilera a warm fuzzy feeling when taking into account "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson's January smack-talk about the show's second-chance-at-stardom motif, Levine's own public shot back at Jackson himself and the three-week "Idol" rating slide this season. Considering that last week's Wednesday "Idol" pulled 19.7 million viewers and a 6.5, that says "The Voice" has the potential to keep pace with the "original."

The musical drama "Smash" made its series premiere Monday night too, drawing in a healthy 11.5 million viewers for a 3.8 rating. In perspective, that was the third biggest prime-time drama debut this season and this season's biggest 10 PM ET/PT drama rating. It's a nice number, but still behind several other hit shows that night.

Over on CBS, "How I Met Your Mother" earned a 4.0, "Two Broke Girls" a 4.3, "Two and a Half Men" a 4.2 and "Mike & Molly" a 3.4 - a 7 to 11 percent slip across the board for their comedy lineup but enough for three of the four to still top the "Smash" rating. "Smash" did just that to "Hawaii Five-0," giving the CBS drama enough competition for it to slip to a season-low 2.7 mark.

On ABC, "The Bachelor" stayed a steady course with a 2.6 rating, while "Castle" joined "Hawaii Five-0" in being felled by its NBC competition to a season-low 2.0 rating. On FOX, "House" hit a 2.4, but "Alcatraz" took a 21-percent tumble to a 2.2 rating. The CW rounded out the night with respective 0.6 ratings for "Gossip Girl" and "Hart Of Dixie."