Sunday’s “American Idol,” which marked the final audition episode, endured a slight week-over-week ratings decline.<\/p>\n
According to fast national data posted by Showbuzz, the episode drew a 1.6 adults 18-49 rating and averaged 7.09 million viewers in the 8PM hour. It improved to a 1.7 and 7.66 million at 9PM.<\/p>\n
Last week’s episode averaged a 1.8 rating and 7.81 million viewers from 8-10PM.<\/p>\n
It is worth noting that the early portion of this week’s episode faced tougher competition from CBS.<\/p>\n
Bolstered by a strong NCAA overrun and its heavily hyped Stormi Daniels interview, this week’s “60 Minutes” drew a far larger audience than last week’s episode. It ran into the 8PM hour, thus providing stiff head-to-head competition when “Idol” first hit the air.<\/p>\n
With “60 Minutes” providing stronger lead-in support, this week’s “Instinct” also appears to have performed better than last week’s episode. That extended the competitive pressure.<\/p>\n
Specific numbers are still being fleshed out due to the live basketball overrun, but CBS was clearly a bigger threat this week than it was last week.<\/p>\n
Sunday’s “Idol,” moreover, compares decently to last Monday’s episode (1.6 rating, 7.68 million viewers).<\/p>\n
After five airings (three Sunday, two Monday), it appears safe to say “American Idol” has not been reinvigorated by the ABC relaunch. It will not return to its live+same-day ratings glory days.<\/p>\n
It is, however, a solid performer by conventional TV ratings standards. The question will be whether that above average performance is strong enough to warrant the big cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“American Idol” dipped from the last Sunday airing — but it did face stiffer competition at 8PM.","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1048],"tags":[233,19],"adace-sponsor":[],"yoast_head":"\n