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The Slide Continues: On Tuesday ‘Idol’ Hit Lowest Ratings Since 1st Summer on Air

May 6, 2010  •  Post A Comment

It’s turning into one for the record books for "American Idol," but probably not in the way the show’s creators would like. Bill Carter reports in the New York Times’ Media Decoder blog that the ‘Idol’ episode on Tuesday, April May 4 was the series’ lowest ratings among the 18- to 49-year-old demographic since "Idol’s’  first summer season on television.

The show scored a 6.0 rating Tuesday evening, which compares with an 8.3 rating on the same evening a year earlier, while total viewers dipped to 17.1 million, down from the 23.4 million who tuned in a year ago.

According to the article, " ‘Idol’ seems to be suffering from two factors: first, almost every show on television — network and cable — has seen some kind of ratings dip over the last few weeks, apparently contemporaneous with the switch to daylight savings time. That has been especially noticeable among shows that start at 8 p.m., as ‘Idol’ does.

"Second, ‘Idol’ now faces much tougher competition than it did in the past. For years the other networks all but gave up against ‘Idol’ and did not come after it with strong programming. Now the Tuesday at 8 hour is arguably the most competitive in television, with the voting results show for ‘Dancing’ on ABC; ‘NCIS’ on CBS; and the strong reality show ‘The Biggest Loser’ on NBC."

9 Comments

  1. Why don’t they just admit that the singers are just not very good any more?

  2. I don’t know about others, but in my case I left “American Idol” after last year’s voting fiasco and have boycotted every episode this season As we all know, producers last year allowed a contestant to in effect stuff the ballot box by using various technology and highly organized orchestration. As a result a boring white bread guitar strummer with cocktail lounge talent at best beat out a truly rare and remarkable performer. The casualty in all this was the credibility of Idol voting, which was reduced to zero. If the voting lacks credibility, what is the point in watching a talent competition? It’s like watching a football game without fair and impartial officiating and scorekeeping.
    Fool me once, shame on Idol’s producers; fool me twice, shame on me. I suspect that I am not the only former Idol viewer who has chosen not to be fooled again.

  3. May 4th…not April 4th

  4. Looks like Simon Cowell jumped the ‘Idol’ ship just in time. …okay, strike up the band…’the party’s over!!!’

  5. The singers are just incredibly boring. Crystal will have a career, the others will fade – so who cares? Simon is bored, Ellen is nice but not going anywhere, Kara is dreadful, and Randy hasn’t had a novel thought in 5 years. I didn’t even Tivo Idol Gives Back – it’s time for Idol to give up.

  6. Justin Guarini was the runner up in season one. Let’s not kid ourselves that there has been incredible talent every year. This year is not significantly worse than most of the years. The main difference is that there hasn’t been a real breakout artist. Quality-wise this year is very comparable to the year Jordin Sparks won.

  7. It had a good run – now it’s winding down. Unlikely “X Factor” will be any more popular.

  8. Sometimes, getting directly to the point, requires you to have a strong attitude.

  9. Dreamin. I love blogging. You all express your feelings the right way, because they are your feeling, focus on your blog it is great.

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