Showbiz411

Last night’s “American Idol” was down two tenths of a percent from Wednesday, but was up slightly compared to last Thursday. Still the once ferociously popular contestant show was skunked by CBS’s comedy block of “Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men” for the second Thursday in a row. “AI” scored a 3.9 on Thursday. “Theory”  had a 5.4 during the show’s first half hour.

“Men” tied “AI” during its second half, had a higher rating but slightly lower viewer numbers. The total number of estimated viewers for “Idol” dropped from 14.37 million on Wednesday to 13.5 million on Thursday. All of this suggests a few things: the Wednesday show doesn’t end with a great cliffhanger. The audience wanders around on Thursday and only comes back to the end of the show. They’re not on the edges of their seats to see what’s next.

When I was a kid, “Batman” ran twice during the week. You always came back for the second show because Batman and the Boy Wonder were in trouble. Maybe they should tie Mariah up or send Nicki toward a spinning blade, hang Randy over boiling oil, or put Keith in a pool of piranhas. Oh wait–he’s already there.

Just kidding.

Roger Friedman

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.