American Idol will live to sing again on ABC. The singing competition has been renewed by the network.
The green light, which comes ahead of the network’s May 15 pitch to media buyers, also includes deals for series talent Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie and host Ryan Seacrest. While the show is pricey, it has delivered the desired ratings that advertisers had been seeking for the revival.
ABC and producers FremantleMedia negotiated a return for what was once TV’s biggest show just a year after it ended its 15-season run on FOX in 2016. The series took up significantly less real estate on the schedule, airing Sundays and Mondays for two months before a brief run of live episodes Sunday, and pulled a smaller audience than it did in its last season on FOX. That being said, the ratings landscape has changed since Idol ended its original run & its numbers for ABC are actually quite respectable.
Through the end of April, American Idol averaged a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49 for the Sunday shows and a 1.9 rating for the Monday telecasts with live-plus-three day lifts. Both of those passes the 1.8 rating that had been guaranteed, albeit not by much: 30-second spots went for nearly $200,000, with 75 percent of the season’s inventory sold ahead of the premiere. One arena where the show didn’t succeed was in launching new dramas. ABC slotted midseason efforts Deception and The Crossing after the show’s Sunday and Monday telecasts, and neither managed to retain their lead-in.
Promising news for the show came last Sunday when the first live telecast popped to its highest score since the premiere. It boded well for a renewal that already seemed like a lock. ABC and parent Disney had invested too much into the project to retreat after just one season. The second live showing, which aired last night, also retained most of the numbers it garnered last Sunday.
