Here’s your ratings news for this week. It’s pretty much the same old song–American Idol mows down everything in its path, striking fear in the hearts of many a network programmer…
According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, “American Idol” (13.4 rating/33 share in adults 18-49, 33.1 million viewers overall) crushed the competition at 8, and was again up a bit vs. the same night a year ago. “House” (10.2/24 in 18-49, 25.0 million viewers overall) followed with one of its best perfs to date, off some from its record-setting delivery of a week ago but more than doubling its closest pursuer in all key categories.
With American Idol in their line-up on Wednesday night, Fox won the Nielsen ratings by a landslide–and then there was everybody else.
Fox toothe night in the key 18-49 demo with an 8.1 rating/20 share in thanks to an episode (11.8/27) of Idol that assembled some of the best–and worst–performances from the various try-outs across the country.
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I wonder if there has ever been another television program that has followed this same pattern American Idol has established. Each year it gets bigger. Each episode wipes out the competition. They may be right when they claim that they’ve become an American institution and a part of the culture. Even if it disappeared a year from now, it has made an indelible mark. There will probably never be another TV show that will do this, but if there were to be it’d be compared to “American Idol”. I wonder what this makes those of us who’ve been watching since Season one? Are we veterans? Did we pave the way? Shouldn’t we get a prize for remembering ‘ducka ducka ducka’, or the travesty of Tamyra’s loss to Nikki, or Clay’s famous hip thrust, or Patrick the REAL first AI ‘rocker’?