American Idol 9 Finale Lowest Rated in Idol History

By On 05/27/2010 · 25 Comments · In AI Season 9, American Idol, Ratings

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Last night’s Idol finale was the lowest rated in Idol franchise history. But we knew that was coming. At least the final show cracked 20M. Sad.

via Mediaweek:

-Ratings Breakdown:
The season-finale of Fox’s American Idol stood well above the competition on the final night of both the traditional (September to May) TV season and May 2010 sweeps, with 23.15 million viewers and a 7.8 rating/23 share among adults 18-49 and growth in every half-hour as follows:

American Idol (Fox)
8:00 p.m. – Viewers: 18.41 million (#1), A18-49: 6.1/21 (#1)
8:30 p.m. – Viewers: 21.07 million (#1), A18-49: 6.9/22 (#1)
9:00 p.m. – Viewers: 24.30 million (#1), A18-49: 8.2/23 (#1)
9:30 p.m. – Viewers: 28.83 million (#1), A18-49: 10.2/27 (#1)

Compared to the year-ago season-ender (Viewers: 28.84 million; A18-49: 10.0/28 on Wednesday, May 20, 2009), however, this was down by a noticable 5.69 million viewers and 22 percent in the demo. Without Simon Cowell next season, the double-digit bleeding will likely continue.

After the jump, take an historical look at Idol finale ratings. The winner is still the Clay Aiken/Ruben Studdard showdown. 36.38M people tuned in to watch.

ETA:  Idol was lowest rated in terms of the demo number. More people watched last night’s finale than Season 1, but Season 1 had more viewers in the desirable demo.

via TVBytheNumbers

9/4/2002 American Idol 10.8 23.02
5/21/2003 American Idol 16.8 38.06
5/26/2004 American Idol 12.0 28.84
5/25/2005 American Idol 12.5 30.27
5/24/2006 American Idol 14.2 36.38
5/23/2007 American Idol 11.5 30.76
5/21/2008 American Idol 11.4 31.688
5/20/2009 American Idol 10.0 28.86
5/26/2010 American Idol 8.2 24.2

 
  • itsalleternal

    No surprise. I was expecting another sub-20M total. Notice it spiked near the end though, perhaps for the reunion appearance?

  • sma11ie

    Wait, was it 23.15 or 24.2 million viewers? In any case, if Season 1 had 23.02, isn’t it tecnhically the 2nd lowest rated finale? Trying to figure out how to read the stats.

    Oh… it’s lowest rated because of the 8.2? So lowest in the demo?

  • will

    Well this is not what The New York Times is reporting, they say it’s the second-lowest rated, with 24.2 million viewers, the lowest being the first season with 22.8 million.

    Even if we go with the Mediaweek figure of 23.15 million, that still makes it the second-lowest, assuming the figure for the first season is accurate.

    ETA: Jinx sma11ie!

  • Laury

    I was expecting that! :(

  • Judee

    5.69 mil? that’s a lot.

  • itsalleternal

    Looking at the numbers, notice the huge drop from season 2 to season 3. It shows that people can be brought back into the fold. But it certainly won’t be easy now.

  • Pam

    Ouch!

  • sma11ie

    Looking at the numbers, notice the huge drop from season 2 to season 3. It shows that people can be brought back into the fold. But it certainly won’t be easy now.

    Yup, the curse of the 3′s! I’m a dork, so I did the percentage change for Seasons 3-9.
    S3 -24.22%
    S4 4.96%
    S5 20.19%
    S6 -15.45%
    S7 3.02%
    S8 -8.92%
    S9 -16.15%

    Huge drop from 2 to 3, then it regains a bit in 4, 5, then a huge drop from 5 to 6, and regains a bit in 7, arguably maintains in 8 (it’s not a HUGE drop from 7 to 8, and the show is aging, so <10% drop is still not bad IMO). Now another big drop this season.

    If we go by our limited sample, we can at best hope for a 3-5% recovery for next year's finale, i.e. somewhere around 25 million.

  • jumpstart

    I’m not at all surprised. For the most part, the guest performers were boring, (most) of the singing was less than average, and the entire show seemed to be thrown together at the last minute. Simon should have “retired” last year … at least he would have gone out with a bang. The finale last night came across like a last – desperate – gasp for air. Sad.

  • koshka

    This cash cow is going to stop mooing so loud if this keeps up next year.

  • babybelle32

    7.8 rating/23 share among adults 18-49

    This number is going to be hard for Fox and Simon Fuller to deal with. They are bleeding younger viewers, which explains why it looks unlikely that anyone who isn’t a white male will win this show. One of the things that I always loved about the show, and one of the reasons why the ratings have always been so high, is that it was clear that anyone could win. Even Kelly and Carrie didn’t look like the typical pop star.

    I’m totally behind Kris winning last year, but it was clear that because of her age and sex that the new demo of older idol voters weren’t going to give Allison a fair shot.

  • TwigLA

    I’m not at all surprised. There was no hype for this season at all and the media coverage was largely ‘ho hum, boring’. My local Fox station …. which happens to be in LOS ANGELES wasn’t even talking about it. And I mean not at all! THey were talking constantly about Dancing WIth The Stars which is AI’s direct rival.

    I just feel that Fox and everyone related to the show checked out this season and it’s not the fault of the contestants.

    I’m sad that the ratings were so low during Kris’ performance and that he was put on so early.

  • bean99

    I don’t think it’s not enough hype or talent. Shows are just not getting the ratings they used to. DWTS’s finale was down 27% and it got plenty of hype.

  • sue

    Well idol needs to look at everything they did WRONG this season. There needs to be a better variety of contestants. But after 9 seasons this was bound to happen. I hope it will bounce back a little next season but seriously half of the top 12 really isn’t that good this year. Great contestants = better ratings. With Simon gone I wonder what they will do next season she shake things up??

  • babybelle32

    I just feel that Fox and everyone related to the show checked out this season and it’s not the fault of the contestants.

    A large part of it was their fault. For example, based on the critiques of most writers/bloggers/etc. the Casey’s duet was the best of the night, but it’s hard to ignore that that was the same guy who many people believe quit the show several weeks ago, and never acted like he did the best that he could up on stage. Poor cast is also to blame, but I’d like to think that most of the 100,000 who auditioned would have put forth a better effort than the majority of the top 24.

  • makeitstop

    Wow, this show is getting pathetic.

    Uninteresting contestants, uninteresting on-air personalities (even worse without Simon), I mean, why even bother with this show anymore? AI needs to just go gently into that good night, and let the wonderful cheesiness of the X-Factor take over.

    I know most Americans are pretty attached to the Idol format, but I promise you, it pales in entertainment value to the X-Factor.

  • hoosiermama

    I wonder what the last half hour viewership was for last year’s finale since its average viewership (28.84M)was equal to the highest viewership of this year’s finale (28.83M for the last half hour)? I guess people don’t really care about the “concert” part of the finale–they tune in for the final results, don’t they?!

    And, how many votes were cast this year? Give us the deets, Ryan! I’m sure they had to be WAY less than the 100M of last year…

  • http://myspace.com/girlgeek mj

    Season 1 had more viewers in the desired demo than Season 9, hence the lowest rated season according to TV By the Numbers

  • Kitwana

    After next year, the ratings will be so low and the producers so desperate that they will probably do an American Idol All Star edition. They’ll probably invite the Top 24 from the past 10 years to audition and compete for the Top 24 of Season 11. The winner will get a recording contract with Sony. Mark my words, it will happen. Jasmine Trias and Ramiele Malubay will kill during Hollywood week. I would definitely watch!

  • sma11ie

    After next year, the ratings will be so low and the producers so desperate that they will probably do an American Idol All Star edition.

    That might happen if they bring back Nigel! That’s what they’re doing on SYTYCD. Though, kidding aside it makes way more sense for a dance show to bring in pros as partners. For AI, and All Star season would be cheesy fun, but would be pretty desperate and amount to jumping the shark for sure…

  • http://mjsbigblog.com/luvadamlamberts-american-idol-tour-2009-washington-dc-re-cap.htm luvadamlambert

    Duh…

  • _nyanyanie

    shoot, i think they should call nigel back, dang! not really happy with the way things are.. i mean, what will happen to poor season 10? they should get back up…

    20M is still big though..

  • noctem seizure

    Haven’t posted in ages and ages and didn’t watch the show at all this year (however, it was impossible to miss the online buzz about Crystal, so I did look at several of her perfomances). But, this seems as good a thread as any to post a general conclusion I’ve reached about the show).

    Idol has become a joke, and the title of “American Idol” has become meaningless over the last two years. There were years before that when the lesser performer on finale night ultimately won, but you could make the case that they were the best over the whole season. But, the last two years the runner-up out-perfomed the eventual winner from the beginning of the season to the end.

    Out of curiosity, I checked Crystal’s score on whatnottosing.com. WNTS, if you don’t know, does for AI performances what Metacritic does for music albums and Rotten Tomatoes does for movies. It gives them a computed score based on the published opinions of a sample of journalists, bloggers etc.

    Anyway, Crystal’s score for the season was 74, the 6th highest average ever (Lee’s was 57; for the record, the gap is much larger than the gap between Adam (69) and Kris (61). However, two of those above her were eliminated after one or two performances, so really she has the 4th highest score. Its also worth noting that everyone above her on the list had fewer total perfomances than she did.

    When I used to post regularly, one of the subjects I used to come back to a lot was the question of whether a female could ever win again. I guess we now know the answer to that question.

    And when the early talk was that S9 would be the year of the female winner, my impression was that AI’s strategy to make that happen was to cast the most bland and mediocre guys possible. But, now we know that won’t even work.

  • iluvai

    Just looking at the comments on MJ’s after the finale, these seem really low compared to last year. Last season it was like firecrackers on here. For a long time!

    I would love a female contestant to win. Crystal just wasn’t my pick for this year, but she has talent and will do well.

  • Grammie Kari

    Another problem is shown in the TOP 10 that will tour. Three girls last year, and four this year. The percentage is greater for the male contestants. I don’t know how they will change things around if they keep the same voting system.