Thursday, May 21, 2026

“American Idol” Thursday Rating Horror: 2.8, Huge Drop from Wednesday

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Horror: “American Idol” was beaten in the demos on Thursday night by “Grey’s Anatomy.” This won’t be music to the ears of Fremantle or Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe. The show was way down from Wednesday– a 3.5–and really down from last Thursday’s 3.1 rating. Only 11.65 million people watched last night, which still won the night for numbers of heads. But still– ABC’s “Grey’s” did a 2.9 with over 9 million viewers, “Scandal” was right behind it with a 2.7 and 8.5 million. “Idol” ratings don’t help “Glee,” which is probably coming its end anyway. But the “Glee’ number was 2.0 following “Idol.” ABC really pulled off a good show against the formerly mighty Fox pair of shows. So even though Jimmy Iovine properly took everyone to task last night on “Idol,’ including the judges, the audience was more interested in real soap operas over on ABC.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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