The TV Zone

The Big Show is still Very Big ...

If you hoped that "Idol" would somehow diminish this season along with the rest of the slumping prime-time world-scape, your hopes have just been dashed (and by "you," I do mean execs at NBC, CBS and ABC...)

The show had a huge opening night.

30.1 million total viewers.

Now, you'll read elsewhere (probably) that this is down from last year - and I believe there was a 10 percent decline from last year - but year-to-year comparisons may be somewhat irrelevant, given the state of prime-time in general. By any standard, this is a huge opening figure. Fox is very happy.

Here's the relevant stat graph from the press release:

On Tuesday the eighth season premiere of AMERICAN IDOL posted a very impressive 11.6/28 among Adults 18-49, with 30.1 Mil Total Viewers, making it the highest-rated telecast and night of the season (all networks, all programming) and the highest-rated night on any network in 11 months among Adults 18-49 and a year in Total Viewers.

"IDOL showed a substantial advantage over the season’s previous highest-rated entertainment telecast, including +57% among Adults 18-49 (11.6/28 vs. 7.4/18 for Grey's Anatomy on 9/25/08). In fact, this +57% advantage is even greater than last year’s comparable advantage over that season’s highest-rated entertainment telecast at the time (+55%, IDOL vs. Grey’s Anatomy premiere on 9/27/07). In other demos, AMERICAN IDOL’s advantage over the previous highest entertainment telecast includes +28% in Total Viewers (30.1 vs. 23.5 Mil for CSI on 10/8/08), +24% among Adults 18-34 (9.7/26 vs. 7.8/21 for Grey’s Anatomy on 9/25/08) and +108% in Teens (10.8/33 vs. 5.2/15 for Family Guy on 11/2/08)."