Update: American Idol averaged 30.074 million in the overnight numbers, down just under 10% from last year's 33.24 million. Bill will post the full night's details soon...
Per Marc Berman the very earliest indication is that the season premiere of American Idol was off 10% versus last year in the early Nielsen metered market ratings.
-Ratings Breakdown:
Fox's veteran American Idol is back and it certainly dominated the evening. But year-to-year, the two-hour eighth season-premiere lost some steam with a 16.7 rating/25 share in the overnights from 8-10 p.m. Comparably, that was down by 10 percent from the 18.6/27 on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008. One year prior to that, American Idol kicked-off with a 21.8/31 on Jan. 16, 2007. Here is the half-hour breakdown:American Idol (Fox)
8:00 p.m. 14.6/22 (#1)
8:30 p.m. 16.5/25 (#1)
9:00 p.m. 17.9/26 (#1)
9:30 p.m. 18.0/26 (#1)
The early metered market ratings aren't necessarily predictive of what the the later fast affiliate ratings provide. Last year's American Idol premiere averaged 33.24 million in the fast affiliate report.Bill will post the viewer and demographic data for all shows, including American Idol later in the morning, so check back. You can see the full metered market report for last night on Marc Berman’s site.
January 14, 6:45p PT: we're having some struggles with our web server and I stopped allowing comments on this post in the hopes it would help. Sorry about that and thanks for understanding.
Metered Market Overnight Ratings: This is normally the first available ratings information, and is based on the electronic measurement service that Nielsen provides in 56 of the nation’s largest markets. In each market a sample of homes is selected to represent that individual market. Often, networks or syndicators provide metered market information as an early indicator of a program’s performance. In aggregate, the 56 metered markets represent 79,890,610 homes, or 70% of all U.S. TV households. Preliminary metered market data are available as early as 8:00AM (ET). Final metered market information, reflecting line-up changes, pre-emptions and runovers, are normally available by 3:30PM
All these shows are past due and feel dated boring.It worked ones but the same thing year after year very dull.
NOOOO SCRUBS
are the ratings really as bad as they seem to be?
GSFABC, Probably, but ABC has stuck with According to Jim for the past several years despite horrible ratings…. Normal rules don’t seem to apply for ABC comedies…
I admit that I dislike the idol thing. But can’t we all say……YAWN!! Been there done that! Simon hates everyone
At the rate the AI audience is shrinking, it’ll be gone in… 10 seasons or so. 30 million is still massive compared to just about everything else on TV. And I can’t imagine an hour of AI costs much to produce compared to an hour of regular scripted programming.
Someone once asked Lamar Hunt if he was concerned that his son was losing a million dollars a year on a soccer team.
Hunt’s answer was something like, “Yes, at that rate I’ll be broke in 200 years.”
The most exciting day of the year! Idol ratings! (Also the most disheartening.)
Are people complaining that AI had 30 freaking million viewers? I mean, seriously!
TV ratings are down overall but AI is close to ending its run. It’s been a succesfull show but all shows get stale at some point.
I’m sure Fox will be devestated that Idol only got 30 million…
…
… Or not.
It’s a little insane that you can drop 10% of your audience and still have more than 30 million viewers, even if its only a few thousand over the 30 million mark.
Simon proved to us last night that he does NOT hate everyone, because
he certainly loved KATRINA in her skimpy bikini…
KATRINA won the chance to go to Hollywood BEFORE she even sang a note hahah!!!
Also its hard to see how Fox can even be considering ditching AI at this point or in the near future – 30 million viewers isn’t something you can turn your back on stale show or not. It’s going to take something truly jaw dropping for AI to be anywhere near a danger zone anytime soon or massive incompotence at Fox…
Yeah, Im sure FOX will cancel AI when hit 20 million viewers each week.
Julia says:
January 14th, 2009 at 8:47 am
The most exciting day of the year! Idol ratings! (Also the most disheartening.)
Julia, please explain to us un understanding people
I was fan-boy of AI since its inception, and watched every previous season from auditions to crown. The formula is stale, the talent is so-so, and there are enough existing American Idol “stars” on the loose to keep Pop radio in business for 30 or more years.
My wife and I chose to watch our Season 3 DVD of “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” instead – after catching 15 minutes of the Idol premiere that included “Bikini Girl”… which felt like I was watching Fonzi jump the shark all over again, or at least every other season premiere of Idol so far…. ***yawn*** :O
Mikey: You’re right but it wasn’t a hockey team,it was when he owned the Dallas Texans football team (later The Kansas City Chiefs) and was trying to get the old AFL going.When told his son was losing a million dollars a year,the old man said,”well,he better be careful. He can only do that every year for the rest of his life”.
Andy, it’s exciting because Idol is the only non-sports show on TV that gets 30 mil+ still. And it’s disheartening because it’s IDOL. I hate American Idol.
Thanks, I figured as much, but hate assuming!
‘Yeah, Im sure FOX will cancel AI when hit 20 million viewers each week.’
Even then it would still be one of the most watched shows on television and its hard to imagine that the costs of AI are that high it wouldn’t be breaking even with 20 million. Idol is something I can see Fox milking forever and a day. With that said there’s something to be said for the idea of resting the format for a year.
The “Bikini Girl” segment of the preview was HORRIBLE. She couldn’t sing and didn’t even have an interesting personality. The fact that they let her through to Hollywood was a disgrace.
AI has officially “jumped the shark”…