American Idol 2018 gave ABC the ratings win Sunday night, as the show took the No. 1 spot with 10.3 million viewers. It also helped give ABC its most-watched Sunday night in five and a half years.
And that was despite the show’s old network Fox’s last-minute time slot placement of a two-hour interview special “OJ Simpson: The Lost Confession?” The 12-year-old interview with OJ Simpson, where he was asked to speculate what might have happened in 1994 when his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her companion Ron Goldman were murdered, attracted 4.4 million viewers.
Fox doesn’t admit it was trying to beat it’s former ratings juggernaut but I think it’s safe to say that had something to do with it. It will be interesting to see if the rivalry continues throughout the season.
All that being said, the revival was still the lowest American Idol premiere since season 1 (9.85 million). And it was only slightly lower than the premiere of the last season on Fox in 2016 where it opened with 10.96 million viewers. So it’s pretty much on par with the previous season. If ABC was expecting to pick up viewers, the network is surely disappointed there.
Will ABC being able to increase those numbers or will the level out and decrease? Time will tell, but the show premiered with very little changes in the formula. The new judging panel of Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan has a lot of chemistry, but still not the show’s focus (thankfully) like NBC’s rival singing compassion show The Voice (which my the way landed the original American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson as a judge this season).
There will be a few differences in the coming weeks, however, as we will see semi-finalists duet with celebrity guests.
What are you thinking of the American Idol revival so far? Do you think the show will thrive? Do you like the new judging panel?