As is often the case, we had a number of TV options when it came to ringing in the new year on New Year’s Eve. NBC, Fox, MTV and ABC were all airing their own specials, but it looks like ABC dominated with their New Year’s Rockin’ Eve broadcast.
Dick Clark was present for the 40th installment of the annual New Year’s Eve broadcast on ABC. And while he led the official countdown to 2012, Ryan Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy hosted some of the other segments at the event. McCarthy even treated viewers with the sight of a stroke-of-midnight lip-lock with one of New York’s finest. On the matter of the kiss, McCarthy later tweeted:
Hope u guys enjoyed it! FYI. I was wearing fake fur & the cop was a G rated kiss. (except for my hand squeezing his butt. Happy new year!
Back to the ratings, according to Variety, New Year's Rockin' Eve: The 40th Anniversary Party earned 8.3 million viewers overall (2.4 rating/9 share in adults 18-49). The special’s numbers grew with each half hour and peaked with a 3.3/12 in the demo (10.5 million) at 9:30 p.m. Afterward, Dick Clark's Primetime New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest averaged 4.1/15 in 18-49 and 12.9 million viewers overall, showing an increase of 3.7 million viewers from last year’s broadcast.
Per Variety, detailed information on the other networks isn’t available (yet, anyway), but from what the site did share the metered-market overnights, it’s looking like ABC is coming out ahead, to say the least. Is that because people are more familiar with New Year’s Rockin’ Eve to consider Carson Daly, Fox’s country alternative, or one of the other specials? Or was the draw of Seacrest, McCarthy and Gaga simply too great to resist?
