"American Idol" Hits Sour Ratings Note

Number Of Viewers Are Down, But Show Still Most Popular In Prime Time

(AP)  Contestants are disappearing as the "American Idol" finale approaches. Unfortunately for Fox, so are the viewers.

The 21.8 million people who watched last Tuesday's competition was the show's smallest Tuesday audience in more than five years. The show did better the next night, with 22.9 million, but that was the smallest Wednesday audience in three years, according to Nielsen Media Research.

They were still the most popular programs in prime time last week. Even though it is the May ratings "sweep," no other show cracked the 20 million viewer mark, once considered routine for television's top programs.

Another one-time big event, the finale of a "Survivor" season on CBS, was seen by 13 million viewers and didn't crack Nielsen's top 10.

---

Photos: "American Idol" Season 7

---

Americans also preferred to spend Mother's Day with their own moms, if possible. NBC's special "America's Favorite Mom," ranked No. 107 for the week with just 2.4 million viewers.

CBS was the nation's most popular network last week, averaging 10.6 million viewers in prime-time (6.7 rating, 11 share), followed by ABC with 9.5 million (6.2, 11). Fox won among the 18- to 49-year-old demographic but, reflecting the "American Idol" decline, slipped to third among all viewers with an 8.9 million average (5.5, 9). NBC had 6 million viewers (4.0, 7), the CW had 2.6 million (1.7, 3), My Network TV had 1.2 million (0.8, 1) and ION Television had 410,000 (0.3, 0).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.6 million viewers (1.8, 3), Telemundo had 950,000 (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 640,000 (0.3, 1) and Azteca had 130,000 (0.1, 0).

ABC's "World News" won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8 million viewers (5.5, 12). NBC's "Nightly News" had 7.8 million viewers (5.4, 12) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.6 million (3.9, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,128,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 112.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of May 5-11, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewership:

1. "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 22.87 million
   
2. "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 21.76 million
   
3. "Dancing With the Stars" (Tuesday), ABC, 18.38 million
   
4. "Dancing With the Stars" (Monday), ABC, 18.11 million
   
5. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 18.07 million
   
6. "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 16.02 million
   
7. "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 15.42 million
   
8. "Without a Trace," CBS, 14.67 million
   
9. "CSI: Miami," CBS, 14.11 million
   
10. "NCIS," CBS, 13.6 million.
    

[dylanxxv]

Paula is a drunk, randy is a flaming fruit and I don''t even know what simon is...The contestants have less talent than a dead possum...Cancel the show already...

[ssm9451]

Call in votes are not counted. This is just to calucate how many viewers there are.

[cyberus-2009]

Of course ratings are dropping .. the tweenies with unlimited cell phones hitting redial for 2 hours that kept in the lack of talent Jason and company most likely caused viewers supporting the real talent to turn away from the show in disgust.

[thisandthat1]

It''s just a bunch of karaoke singers in an updated version of the Gong Show (without all the fun!).

[exposed2008]

PROOF OF AMERICAN IDOL FRAUD!!!!

This is the second year in a row that American Idol has had a songwriting contest. Since the contest ended last year I''ve researched the contestants from last year and this year....FYI there were over 25,000 entries last year at $10.00 for each song. 20 songs were then chosen out of the 25,000 for an online vote. The winner''s song is then performed on the American Idol Finale. The problem I have is that one of THIS years Top 20 Finalist is a Co-writer of LAST years Top 20 Winner. Somebody from American Idol has some explaining to do.

THERE IS A LOT, LOT, LOT MORE!!!!!
FOR ALL THE FACT PLEASE VISIT....
http://americanidolexposed.weebly.com/

[misssuzq]

The contestants are not very good this season.

No surprise here.

But I feel the judges have no business coming down hard on them since THEY are the ones that selected thses few out of thousand and thousands of applicants.

I think the mentor thing is a waste of time and nobody gets anything out of it.

I also think that these "reality" shows need to be on once a year, not twice, in order to keep them fresh.

[shawnp1968]

their choices of mentors for this season were atrocious... not to mention the "popularity contest" has eliminated the cream of the crop. America turned this into a farce by the way they vote!!! Populatity beats talent every year... and it just keeps getting worse!!!