Is it time to finally put American Idol out to pasture?
Some believe there’s hunt in the old dawg yet. Others see the writing on the wall and believe Fox had better pull the plug and plan for the future while there’s still time.
The ratings for the Season 12 finale came out last week and they were grim, no matter how the network tries to spin it.
The celebrity-bloated, two-hour finale that crowned blues singer Candice Glover champ was held May 16 and wasn’t even the most-watched show of the evening. That honor went to CBS’ The Big Bang Theory. Other viewers were lured away by the super-sized series finale of The Office.
Only 14.3 million watched the confetti rain down on Glover. That’s 7 million fewer than the Season 11 finale.
For the first time since Season 1, the finale failed to break the 20 million mark and was a mere shadow of its heyday. In 2006, the Idol finale topped more than 36 million. Thirty million was the mark for years after.
Those are grim numbers for the aging series. Worse yet is the fact that in two short years Idol’s average audience has dropped by 10 million viewers, from 23.1 million to 13.2 million.
More bad news? Advertisers pay premium prices for a younger (18-49) audience and Idol’s is headed in the wrong direction. Two seasons ago the average viewer age was 47.3. This season it was 51.2. The finale saw a 44 percent drop in the coveted younger audience from last season.
No wonder the song list seems to be stuck in the golden oldie category. I mean, when you roll out 79-year-old Frankie Valli on finale night, it’s like having The Lawrence Welk Show during PBS pledge week.
Bringing back former finalists Adam Lambert and Jennifer Hudson didn’t help. And Mariah Carey’s medley was a horrendous exercise in lip-syncing (her agent swears it was recorded live). Recorded live or some technical snafu, her mouth didn’t match the music, so what’s the difference? It was painful to watch.
What went wrong this season?
My theory is that America is inundated with programs of this sort and viewers have grown weary of them. The Idol formula - singing, dancing, talent or whatever - has gotten stale even if tweaked on The Voice and The X Factor. Too many singers. Nothing is special anymore.
Remember when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was all over ABC’s lineup? We couldn’t get enough. Then we grew tired of it and ABC paid the price for not being prepared.
It’s looking as if original Idol judge Randy Jackson was wise to announce early that he’s leaving. The series was able to give him his props.
The rumor is the other three judges - Nicki Minaj, Carey and Keith Urban - will be gone as well, as the series desperately tries to reboot the machine for next year. Maybe even a format change is in order as well.
Minaj was a pleasant surprise with her candor and insight. But for the life of me I can’t understand what Carey brought to the table that was worth paying her $18 million.
Bottom line: Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly has claimed (at least in public) that the series, even down from its glory days, is still a valuable and profitable entity. Eking out a profit is one thing; being still worth watching is another.
The Voice. Meanwhile, over on The Voice, NBC has announced that the show will bring back original judges Christina Aguilera and Cee-Lo Green alongside Adam Levine and Blake Shelton in the fall. For midseason next year (after the Winter Olympics), current judges Shakira and Usher will return to join Levine and Shelton.
The Voice is averaging 14.5 million viewers overall this season.
The X Factor. Simon Cowell’s ill-advised $15 million experiment with Britney Spears as a judge is over. In her place come fall will be Destiny’s Child founding member Kelly Rowland. The 32-year-old will reportedly be paid a paltry $1 million for her expertise, but there will be no heavy lifting.
The other judges alongside Cowell will be Latin singer Paulina Rubio, 41, and Disney graduate Demi Lovato, 20. Cowell, by the way, is 53 and probably doesn’t mind sitting alongside three attractive women.
Program note: I have always been fascinated by treehouses. I’d love to have lived in that one in Swiss Family Robinson (kids, ask your grandparents).
Now there is a series for us. Animal Planet debuts Treehouse Masters at 9 p.m. Friday. Tree whisperer Pete Nelson designs and builds private escapes for the kid in all of us.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail: [email protected]
Weekend, Pages 32 on 05/30/2013