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On the second night of its three-night live round American Idol (3.7/10) saw a surprising flameout by contestant Charlie Askew over criticism from the judges. Besides the profound dismay from judge Nicki Minaj over Askew’s performance, the two-hour show also saw Idol continue its weekly Wednesday ratings slide. While a final numbers adjustment is likely, last night’s Idol slipped 3% in fast nationals from its February 28 show to hit a new in-season Wednesday result. That’s the fourth week in a row for the show to hit such a low and the worst Wednesday performances since Idol’s first season in summer 2002. Also down in total viewership with 12.7 million from last week’s 13.1 million, last night’s Idol was up 9% in fast nationals from Tuesday’s broadcast. With Idol as the most watched show of the night, Fox won Wednesday in total viewers and among Adults 18-49.
Survivor: Caramoan(2.5/7) saw the Fans team lose yet again to the Favorites. The second most watched show of the night with 9.36 million viewers and the second program of the night among the 18-49, the fourth week of the competition show’s 26th season dipped 4% from last week’s show. CBS ran repeats of Criminal Minds (1.7/4) and CSI (1.5/4) to close out Wednesday night. NBC aired a new Whitney (1.3/4) last night, which rose 8% from last week and delivered the comedy its best rating in five weeks. The rest of the network’s night was encores with another Whitney (1.0/3) followed by Law & Order: SVU (1.1/3) and Chicago Fire (1.0/3)
ABC had the only other new shows of the night with The Neighbors (1.7/5) at 8:30 PM and Suburgatory (1.7/4) at 9:30 PM. The former was flat with last week while the latter fell 23% to hit a series low. Otherwise it was all repeats with The Middle (1.6/5), Modern Family (2.0/5) and Nashville (0.9/2). The CW had encores of Arrow (0.4/1) and Supernatural (0.4/1)
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What really sucks is that this is an amazing panel of judges and IMO the best they have ever had which includes Simon. They have a real opinion not the fluff we used to get out of JLO, Tyler, Paula. Real musicians that know when to compliment when appropriate and let the artists know when they did bad and why with very concrete reasons. A true music hudging show which is the premise of AI.
Unfortunately this is the WORST cast in the history of the show and some early casts were real bad but these aritsts take the cake. Not a star in the bunch. They all look like background singers with no personalities. The artists are dragging the show down.
That makes no sense at all. If the judges were good, they would have picked the real best between the thousands who contested, not some “background singers with no personalities”.
I don’t know why you are insulting background singers by comparing this bunch to them…
I thought Christabel Clack had potential to be a star had she chosen to sing rock instead of R&B, it would’ve suited her better vocally to sing songs like “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by KT Tunstall or “Sober” by Pink. But none of the judges steered her in that direction. Her voice really stood out, and it’s obvious they desperately want a girl to win.
Judging from the ridiculous amount of camera time given to Angela Miller and Janelle Arthur from the beginning, it’s clear that they are the chosen ones and will be in the top two, I guarantee it. Devin Valez will probably be in the third position. Angela’s going to win, it’s a no-brainer. I bet she’ll never even be in the bottom three. But will she be a viable artist?
While I think Angela Miller has a polished voice, if you put her in a group of 20 industry singers, I wouldn’t be able to pick her voice out. She’s not unique, just young, which is what these shows have begun to primarily focus on. Getting teens and tweens under contract while they’re young, exploit them and then abandon them once their albums stop selling.
Then they shove these tweens and teen “sensations” down our throats Bieber style, telling us that they’ve got a story to tell us about how hard their life in the suburbs was or how someone broke their heart, yada, yada, yada.
All of the singing shows need to start putting an ardent effort into finding UNIQUE talent and stop with the cookie-cutter Barbie/Ken doll image. There job is not to find the next porn-star or pinup girl, it’s to find a singer with a gripping voice like Joe Cocker; Tina Turner, Celia Cruz, John Lennon, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, Dusty Springfield, Celine Dion, Otis Redding, Gloria Estefan, etc. END OF RANT.
The test as to whether a judge has credibility is if he/she can actually sing given this is a “singing” competition. Unfortinately Nicki Minaj couldn’t sing her way out of a kareoke bar. She wouldn’t even make past the first round of AI auditions.
I can see Fox renewing Idol for next season. While the ratings are dropping, it’s still doing better than most of what else is on. And with X-Factor failing to deliver, Fox would be wise to start now to find what is going to take AI’s place in a couple of years.
If American Idol has another season like this current one the ratings are going to tank and I don’t think FOX could justify keeping it on air. They need to disregard looks and find TALENT. Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, Eliot Yamin and Jennifer Hudson are examples of the show’s capability to find great singers, but there’s been nothing as of late.
RERUNS of CBS procedurals defeat almost everything original that ABC and NBC put out these days. And that’s the 18-49 demo!
And they’re very close to toppling Idol.
What happened to idol
Nicki Minaj is what happened to Idol. Even though it has fallen in the ratings over the last couple of years, she has accelerated that fall. She is the most annoying person to watch and listen to. I feel sorry for the other judges and the contestants.
Well, when the originals are a combination of dreck like The Neighbors and Whitney, it’s no wonder people opted for reruns elsewhere.
Chris,
Whitney and the Neighbors are ironically bright spots for NBC and ABC. I’m talking about just about every other scripted show on about every other night, lol.
Also, doesn’t matter if the show is quality or not (look at Awake from last year, Last Resort from this year), people just aren’t watching those networks.
The girls had a great show on Tuesday. I don’t know what’s happening with the guys, but they suck so much that they’re dragging down the show.
Oh man – i miss seeing burgeoning rock stars on American Idol. Just the plane, boring, middle of the road good singers now. snooze. My fav show has been dying a slow death for a few years.
just put this show out of its misery already
This season is a disaster, both in terms of judges and contestants. The quality of singers, especially on the male side, is atrocious. What’s even worse is the judges, starting with Keith (who always goes first instead of them rotating the order) who is simply too nice to give any meaningful feedback. The only fun is listening to Randy chuckle every time Nicki Manaj opens her mouth.
There are too many judges. By the time the 4th judge renders an opinion the audience is gone. But leave it to the FOX GODS to meddle next year, and rejigger the judge table. They should have kept Paula and Randy, and used the 3rd seat as a rotating seat.
I thought Minaj would be a disaster, but now I believe that of all AI judges over the years, she is second only to Simon. Nicki is a smart girl, makes insightful comments and speaks her mind. If AI is renewed, I hope she comes back.
Idol is def not what it used to be. For one Mariah is terribly annoying, she has that FAKE!!! Diva personality. Hope she doesn’t sing up for next year, that is if idol comes back. Nicky & Keith are actually good but Randy should also GO!!.
Song selections were really off this week. And everyone just stood there-no real movement or attempt at stage presence. And frankly, the show’s talent pool is drying up. No one is jumping off the screen like Lambert or Fantasia. I do find Nicki very entertaining and love watching the wide shots of Mariah trying to be neutral whenever Nicki speaks. I predict some duet between the two by the end of the season.
You would have thought that both American Idol and Survivor would have had strong upticks in demo and total viewers given that everybody else was in repeats, but no, they both sunk even lower. Still, Idol kept it’s head above a 3.0 so that’s always a bright spot. But when new programming returns don’t be surprised if the Idol drops aren’t much sharper. Look at how strong the Modern Family repeat was at 9pm. That 2.0 toasts all of CBS’ Monday night sitcom repeats. Even The Middle had strong repeat numbers. There’s nothing to say for non-competitor, NBC. As for ABC’s other new comedies, Better With You, Cougartown, and even Happy Endings had better Wednesday numbers. But the real kicker are the numbers for Last Man Standing and Malibu Country on Friday. There’s ABC’s two star performers being relegated to Friday while Suburgatory and Neighbors are allowed to dilute Wednesday’s overall potential. It amazing that the programmers over at ABC, dumb and blind as they are, get to keep their jobs, unchallenged.
Once upon a time Idol was a great show. But after Hicks won in season 5, the winners were largely forgettable. Sure David Cook and the last 2 winners found some success, but none on the level of Clarkson, Underwood, Hudson and Daughtry.
The format is tired. And the whole “painful” auditions that are showcased at the start is now a detriment to the show.
The X-Factor may have some wonky production issues, but the talent last season was better than anyone on this show now.
The Voice is the hipper format right now. But if FOX can find a way to tweak X-Factor one more time, it could finally be the hit it should be.
The only real entertainment for me on AI anymore is watching Mariah’s face with Nicki talks. I never thought anyone could make Mariah look like the most level-headed one.
While the judges are interesting and provide some fairly decent commentary, they chose some truly awful contestants, with very little variety. It’s mostly R&B with a couple pop and country singers. Blecccch.
Seems like ratings for the majority of shows are down, catastrophically for some. I think with the impact of social networking, people just have a lot more interesting things to do with their time now. Netflix doesn’t help, either.
American Idol sucks. There are many good singers that the judges made comments that are contrary to the good performances of the contestants. Niki is terrible. I do know why she was qualified to be a judge. THE VOICE IS THE BEST.