By now, it's being reported all over that although Wednesday (April 9) night's American Idol telethon helped FOX easily win the night, ratings were off by more than 33 percent from last year's Idol Gives Back event. The numbers don't lie, except that they sort of do.

The ratings basics are pretty easy to parse:

According to Fast National estimates from Nielsen, Idol Gives Back averaged just under 17.6 million primetime viewers and a 6.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic. Airing last April 25, Idol Gives Back averaged 26.9 million viewers and a 10.2 demo. The ratings were the lowest for any Idol telecast since 2005's "Worst Auditions" special.

So if you're Variety or Broadcasting & Cable, you just barf up those two sets of figures and talk about a ratings decline of more than a third and it becomes the latest in the long line of "American Idol Ratings Are Down!" stories that have been proliferating all season long, stories that are really only relevant if you ignore overall drops in network television viewership this spring and you just happen to figure that FOX is miserable about the fate of a show that still remains the most watched on television by a whopping margin.

But the stories reporting the drop for Idol Gives Back as if it's shocking and yet provide no context are really irking me this morning (fortunately, our Zap2it story had context...).

At least The Hollywood Reporter was confused enough to call FOX for some clarification.

Not to want to sound like a FOX or American Idol apologist, but this one is really simple:

Last year's Idol Gives Back special was packaged as a regular Wednesday night elimination, just expanded to two hours by a variety of musical appearances and celebrity pleas for donations. It was obvious from the opening minutes that amidst the footage of Carrie Underwood lip-synching to African orphans and Annie Lennox wailing in misery, it would be inappropriate to eliminate anybody. And yet the show carried out the ruse for the duration. Three singers were isolated to the Bottom Three and host Ryan Seacrest went to the trouble of making each potential evictee -- a group that included eventual winner Jordin Sparks -- feel anxious. So viewers tuned in for an eviction and until the very last second, that's what they were led to believe they were getting. As a result, the ratings for that episode would have been very much in line with standard Wednesday elimination episodes.

Perhaps sensing that they couldn't do the exact same fake-out this year, Idol producers didn't bother putting up the facade at all. It was announced over a month ago that this week's elimination would take place in a special Thursday episode and that Wednesday's Idol Gives Back special would be a straight-forward, no-fuss-no-muss telethon. So viewers who watch American Idol for its competitive aspects already knew that Wednesday's special was not mandatory viewing.

American Idol, in fact, had almost nothing to do with Wednesday's special. This season's Top Eight did three performances, but two of them were outside of FOX's regular 8-to-10 primetime programming block (one opened the show and the other aired at 10:05 p.m. ET). In fact, during FOX's standard two-hour primetime slot, Miley Cyrus performed more times than the Idol Top Eight, who spent most of their time answering phones. While past Idol favorites including Fantasia and Elliott Yamin were scheduled to either appear or perform, they must have been left on the cutting room floor (along with the presidential candidates, whose cameos are expected to air tonight), leaving Carrie Underwood as the show's only veteran granted a full on-screen performance (Daughtry appeared, but only in a filmed segment in Africa).

So American Idol viewers knew they were just watching for a 150-minute lecture on poverty in Kentucky, homelessness in New Orleans and malaria in Africa. They weathered a tone-deaf vocal turn by Teri Hatcher and watching Fergie to cartwheels in impossibly tight pants. They struggled through Jimmy Kimmel recycling old jokes about Simon Cowell's man-boobs and Robin Williams and Billy Crystal popping up only to serve as sad reminders that once upon a time they used to be funny.

Given what viewers had to sit through for 150 minutes, I'd say an average audience of 17.6 million primetime viewers is actually somewhat remarkable.

Oh and if you haven't done so yet, it's not too late to stop by the Idol site and make a donation.

[Note: After posting its morning story bemoaning the ratings drop without context, Variety has now added the line "It should ben noted, however, that there was a contestant eliminated in the final minutes of last year's "Idol Gives Back" and that wasn't the case Wednesday" to its ratings story. Stay tuned to see if they eventually fix either the grammar or facts.]

Comments

<>

And let's stay tuned to see if you eventually fix the misspelling of "grammar"!

Chip | Apr 10, 2008 1:25:55 PM | #

---

Idol is the best!!! The ratings SHOULD be going up. The people in america who don't watch it ard deprived of good taste!!

rad ray | Apr 10, 2008 1:27:17 PM | #

---

Sorry, even with qualifications, there is no way to justify that big a drop in ratings! I follow AI ratings and that is huge!

Danielle | Apr 10, 2008 1:28:02 PM | #

---

Sorry about the second post, My comp. frose.

rad ray | Apr 10, 2008 1:29:08 PM | #

---

Chip - Point taken. People in glass houses, etc. Then again, I just fixed my typo. Their story? Still wrong.

Danielle - You don't see how a 33 percent dip between an elimination episode and a telethon can be justified? Check out the ratings for the last dozen music specials CBS has done. People watch Idol largely for the competitive aspect. No competitive aspect? No viewership. At least not for seven million viewers. Do you have a better theory?

-Daniel

Daniel | Apr 10, 2008 1:40:39 PM | #

---

Poster number 1... There is no "e" in "grammar." :)

Adam | Apr 10, 2008 2:11:44 PM | #

---

ai is just getting tired

dan | Apr 11, 2008 11:01:28 AM | #

---

Our local Fox channel has been off the air with tec. troubles since Monday maybe the ratings are down because lots of people missed the show

Becky | Apr 12, 2008 6:17:32 AM | #

---

Post a comment

Name:
Email Address:	optional
URL:	optional
Comments: