I don’t get it. On Wednesday, “American Idol” did pretty well, with a 3.1 in the key demo. But last night the singing contest dropped to a 2.9, and fell to 11.9 million viewers. Even though they threw in Paula Abdul and Clay Aiken as surprise guests, the show could not hold its own against two reruns of “The Big Bang Theory” sandwiched around a rerun of “Two and a Half Men.” The sitcom had a 3.2 and 3.0 respectively and scored an average of 10 million viewers– not bad considering they were reruns.
This has to be particularly vexing to the “Idol” producers. Their upstart rival, “The Voice” on NBC, scored a 5.1 this week–a high for them among 18-49 year olds. “The Voice” comes across as young and alive, while “Idol” feels like it’s struggling to keep everyone awake. This week did feature a glimmer of life as Nicki Minaj tried to get something going with Mariah Carey by calling her “sir.” But it wasn’t enough to make viewers sit up and notice.
Meanwhile, “Idol” has really got a lot of good performers this year. Candice Glover and Angie Miller are excellent, and the competition is top notch.
