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Here's your playground, Idol Watchers, for more auditions. Can we all agree that this audition thing has grown stale and needs to be over?
American Idol Auditions: Pittsburgh
Thursday night televises auditions from Pittsburgh for another two hours. While you await tonight's slog, here's some more news from last night's Season 11 debut:
While ratings fell, social media postings on sites like Twitter, using the #Idol hashtag, spiked to impressive numbers.
And it turns out "Tent Girl" Amy Brumfield, (above, Fox/Idol) who had the requisite hard-luck story and, thankfully, somewhat decent vocals, has a past, ie, an arrest record according to TMZ research. Read here.
Meantime, follow me on Twitter @HowardCohen for live commentary, soon as I get back from assignment, and have fun in this playground, Idol Watchers.
American Idol hits low note in ratings war
Photo: Fox/American Idol
The King of Reality Competitions has fallen but still remains mightier than the rest.
The Season 11 premiere of American Idol, which introduced fans to a likely finalist in Philip Phillips Jr. (or Phillipx2 in Twitterspeak), drew 21.6 million total viewers and a 7.2 demo rating, dropping 18 percent in total viewers and 26 percent in the coveted 18-24 demo from last season's bow.
The numbers represent Idol's biggest between-seasons percentage decline ever.
Not surprising, of course. Idol is the senior on the block and few shows not named 60 Minutes boast ratings increases when they are this long in the tooth. South Florida DirecTV customers also had a WSVN blackout to contend with in the onging rate dispute. Plus, there is a glut of music programs on TV. People seem to have had enough if the rapidly declining ratings for scripted shows like Glee or the collective yawn that greeted the reality competition upstarts, the blatant Idol rehash X Factor and the silly The Voice, are an indication.
But for all the gloaters in the The X Factor and The Voice camps, those retread shows still can't command half of Idol's viewership or impact in the music industry. The Voice winner's debut album came and went in a week's time, for instance. South Florida X Factor winner Melanie Amaro should release her debut some time this year. Will it achieve Idol Season 10 winner Scotty McCreery's crossover popularity at retail and radio? The Magic 8 Ball here says: outlook isn't favorable.
And despite a bloated two-hour audition show Wednesday, with yet another month of tiresome audition shows to come, including two more shows tonight and Sunday, Idol still is a more watchable enterprise, with more engaging judges, than its recent competitors. Perhaps a Season 12 quick fix might be to scrap all these audition shows and condense them into one two-hour broadcast, shorten the season and get to the finalist's competition that much sooner.
For more followhttp://twitter.com/HowardCohenon Twitter
American Idol S:11 premieres Wednesday
Photos: Fox/AmericanIdol.Com
The 11th season of American Idol premieres tonight at 8 p.m. on Fox with audition rounds from Savannah, Ga.
The senior music competition program heads into its 11th year with some momentum. Idol is still far and away the most successful program of its type, with ratings more than double that of the overhyped and underwhelming The X Factor (sorry, Simon) and the plain silly The Voice. Idol also can still make an impact when the show finds the right winner as they apparently have with Scotty McCreery last year. The country teen has just gone platinum with Clear as Day, his debut CD, and his album has ridden the Top 30 since its release in the fall. Scotty is the most successful winner since Season 7's David Cook.
I'd like to welcome back my Idol Watch friends. I don't plan to offer regular commentary on the blog during auditions, which last through most of February. My interest really begins once the Top 12 finalists compete for live votes in March. In the meantime, I'll be giving live commentary for most of the shows on Twitter @HowardCohen. Follow me there and also feel free to congregate here and thanks for joining the Idol chatter.