It was a big night for Candice Glover on American Idol. The singer won the grand prize in the closer of Idol's twelfth season, beating out fellow female singer Kree Harrison, who took the runner-up prize. While it was a good night for Glover, it was not a good night for Idol. The season finale, which ran over two hours, earned a series low for finale viewers. In fact, the finale took in less than half the number of viewers it earned for its finale two years ago.
Deadline says Idol earned 13.6 million viewers for its finale, with a 3.4/11 rating. That's down from the 21.5 million who tuned in last year, and 29.29 million that tuned in for Season 10 in 2011. We've known that Idol's ratings have been slipping, but that's a drastic drop. So what happened? Well, first, the show's just not as popular as it once was, and there's already been talk of a drastic overhaul and confirmation that Randy Jackson won't be returning to judge next season.
Let's also factor in that some of us would have preferred Angie Miller to be in the finale. And maybe without her in the running, some viewers opted not to tune in.
But what it most likely comes down to is the steep competition that the finale was up against, including the season finales of The Big Bang Theory, Elementary, Grey's Anatomy, The Vampire Diaries and Beauty and the Beast. Not to mention, The Office series finale, which began with an hour-long retrospective that looked back on the series' run and featured commentary from the cast, and the hour-and-fifteen-minute finale episode, which aired at 9:00 p.m. In the end, there was a lot of big TV airing last night and when it came down to it, given Idol's diminishing popularity and the stronger appeal of so many other shows, I'm thinking a lot of people were watching something else while Fox was airing Idol's giant two-hour (plus) finale.
In twelve seasons, this is the first finale I didn't watch, though I did hit pause on The Office to catch the results. That was partially to do with my own waning interest in the series and partially to do with the fact that I'm less interested in watching Ford plugs, medleys and Psy performances than I am in the actual competition. A big finale works for a big season, and while Idol had some great talent among its contestants in Season 12, the season itself was just ok. It'll be interesting to see what steps Fox takes to try to get the show back on top next year.
