A couple of things…
While I struggle to finish my recap, here’s my Cliff’s Notes summary of last night’s finale…
Too much time given to pointless “special guests” (Green Day and Tony Bennett get a pass) at the expense of the Top 12. Last year, all the guest stars, except Prince, performed with the contestants. It gave each Idol ample time to perform one last time on the Idol stage. Boo to the person who deprived 4th place finisher Lakisha Jones of her Idol duet. Props to the producers for bringing back all the former winning Idols they could. It was cool to see them all together on one stage.
Congratulations to Jordin Sparks. I’m sure she’ll wear the mantle of American Idol gratefully and proudly. She’ll probably also sell many many units of her Idol CD, making the old man Clive Davis very very happy. He sure loves his units, as he made very clear last night.
Speaking of Clive. Talk about bringing the show to a grinding, screeching halt. Nothing would have pleased me more than if a trap door had opened and swallowed him up during his tedious gloat-fest. Now THAT woulda been Good Tee Vee.
Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis Performance mp3s-Now Available for Download
While the bottom 10 Idols’ performance singles are no longer available at americanidol.com, you can purchase Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis’s mp3s there until June 20th.
For you pod people, the downloads are also available at iTunes.
But here’s the deal–both Jordin and Blake have 10 songs available. Five of them are bundled in an EP (including Jordin’s craptacular coronation single, “This Is My Now.”) The other 5 are available as singles. I’m not quite getting the logic here. It seems rather random.
Season 6 Finale Ratings Down 19%
I’ll be posting a ratings wrap up as soon as I have final numbers. In the meantime, it is interesting to note that Season 6’s finale ratings dropped 19% from Season 5’s ratings. 29 million people watched last night’s finale, according to preliminary data by Nielsen Media Research. That’s versus last year’s 36.4 million. Wednesday’s numbers were the lowest 18-49 numbers since its original cycle in 2002 and the lowest viewership since the third season.
The preliminary numbers do not include the viewers who tuned in after the 10 pm cutoff. The show ran about 9 minutes long.
However, the voting totals were up 17% from last year–from a total of 63.4 million votes last year to 74 million votes this year.
