NBC Hit The Ratings Jackpot Last Night

It was a good night for struggling network NBC: It won its season-opening night, probably causing a massive exhale of relief from the general direction of the offices of NBC Corporate. The Voice and Blacklis t both hit big ratings, beating out stiff competition and likely ensuring that the excess of singing competition shows in the world aren't going anywhere.

It's not really the biggest shock in the world that The Voice pulled in big numbers — specifically, 14.7 million viewers, with a rating of 4.9 — but it's a nice boon for NBC that their new drama The Blacklist , which premiered at 10 p.m. to an audience of 12.6 million and a 3.8 rating. According to The Wrap, this makes it the top-premiering show "of any series, drama, comedy or reality, on the Big 4 in the past year (since Revolution)."

Coming in second after NBC was CBS, with the final season of How I Met Your Mother opening to 9.2 millions viewers. (And for those of you who need it, here are some tips to surviving the season, which will no doubt be picked apart by fans.) 2 Broke Girls dropped almost 25 percent from last year with 8.8 million, and new sitcom Mom earned 7.9 million for its first episode, which isn't wowing many but seems respectable. Fox's Sleepy Hollow, which premiered last week to big ratings, held strong in its second episode with 8.6 million viewers and a 3.1 rating.

The general idea here seems to be that, while NBC's programming woes are probably long from over, the exec's eyes over at 30 Rockefeller Center are probably a little less strained and bleary than usual.

Image: NBC