Some of our favorite competition reality shows appeared in the Top 10 of the year end social rankings from Talkwalker Social Content Ratings.
Data from the company released on Wednesday (Dec. 16) shows that American Idol came in at No. 3 for the year for all prime-time/late night shows. Dancing with the Stars place at No. 5, The Bachelor at No 6, and America’s Got Talent at No. 9.
Adam Davis, Idol‘s supervising digital producer told Billboard Magazine that the numbers reveal that Idol achieving its highest-ever ranking on the list — along with nabbing the No. 1 spot for the most social prime time reality series of 2020 — is no surprise. “Idol really set itself up this year because of our fan base, which gravitated to everything the Idol talent did this year and how we did it from home,” Davis said.
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Judge Katy Perry, helped to drive American Idol’s high ranking, coming in as the No. 1 most engaging talent for 2020 primetime series TV according to Talkwalker. She had 12 million more engagements than former Idol judge and World of Dance producer/creator Jennifer Lopez.
Idol was the most social TV series on broadcast networks last season, with 27 million total social interactions across new episodes — more than double the interactions generated by such reality hits as Keeping Up With the Kardashians, eight million more than The Voice and almost 19 million more than RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Davis told Billboard that his team worked closely with the contestants and judges to work their socials. They paid particular attention to TikTok. “You can feel the energy from the TikTok crowd getting exposed to what AI is, through the casting process to while we were on air,” he said. “You might come into Idol as a TikTok star with 100,000 or one million followers, but you’re now on a platform where we can introduce you to millions more who haven’t even downloaded the app.”
You might remember American Idol finding talent on TikTok back in 2018 while it was still called Musical.ly. Also, American Idol pursuing Tik Tok darlings like Claudia Conway, daughter of Kellyanne Conway, makes sense.
