The “American Idol” season finale, which featured a send-off for judge Simon Cowell and the announcement that Lee DeWyze won the competition, achieved ratings dominance Wednesday, rising dramatically over recent season nine results shows.
Unfortunately, the number also represented a near-20% decline from the closing rating for last year’s finale, in which dark horse Kris Allen defeated frontrunner Adam Lambert.
According to THRFeed, the finale posted an 8.2 adults 18-49 rating from 8:00PM to 10:07PM, with a viewership average of 24.2 million. The number was down 18% from last year’s 10.0 rating with 28.8 million viewers, notes TVBN.
The show’s numbers did escalate greatly from 9:30PM onward (apparently peaking at over 30 million for the final seven minutes), indicating that there was still significant interest in the result. From 9:30PM-10PM, the show averaged a 10.2 rating with 28.8 million viewers.
“Idol,” which was down about ten percent year-over-year (the average was held up by strong marks for the early audition episodes; midway through the season, performance and results show episodes were often down from last year by as much as 20%), returns next season without Simon Cowell at the judges’ table. He will instead host FOX’s US version of “The X-Factor” in the fall of 2011.