American Idol 2018 held it’s own Sunday night to lead ABC to victory, along with CBS who had March Madness to thank for its showing. On Monday night, however, NBC and The Voice beat ABC and American Idol. It wasn’t a total loss for Idol, though because the show maintained most of its viewers from the previous week.
Let’s take a closer look at the numbers.
Sunday
From 8-10 pm American Idol Season 16 had 7.7 million viewers and 1.8 rating for adults 18-49, according to Nielsen Media Research. That means the show was down about 21 percent in the demo from its premiere the previous Sunday, but maintaining a respectable retention rate following the highly-anticipated premiere.
Monday
Again airing from 8-10 pm, American Idol delivered 7.7 million viewers and averaged a 1.6 rating in adults 18-49. That’s an 11 percent dip in the demo and an 8 percent dip in total viewers from last week, according to Nielsen. updates. Reports show that the Idol audience also grew in each half hour of its Monday broadcast. Over at NBC, The Voice (which boasts Idol winner Kelly Clarkson as a judge) held onto its lead averaging 10.7 million viewers for the night, making it the top-rated show of the night.
These aren’t horrible numbers, especially considering no one expected American Idol’s popularity to reset just because it was off the air a couple of years. It’s an interesting choice to put it against The Voice on Monday nights, but that’s on ABC. It is expected that viewers will increase and hold steady as we get into the actual competition position of the show. Auditions aren’t where it’s at with singing competition shows. The Voice has proven that. American Idol really should have shaken off its past and just skipped the audition process.
ABC should be pretty happy with its Sunday showings with Idol, since it hasn’t had great Sunday numbers in years. So I think ABC will be happy with American Idol in its lineup.
What do you think of American Idol 2018? Are you into it or not?