‘American Idol’ Gets Storming Start
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A new edition of “American Idol,” the hit reality TV show that teams dreams with screams, got off to a storming start, giving Fox television one of its highest audience ratings ever.
The 2003 season premiere of the amateur talent search for the next instant pop star averaged 26.5 million viewers — the biggest audience for any network show Tuesday night — according to preliminary figures on Wednesday from Nielsen Media Research.
The winning formula of barbed comments from British record executive and judge Simon Cowell (“Go back to your vocal coach and demand a refund”) and the hopes of thousands of young wannabe stars grabbed a 30 percent share of viewers younger than 50, the key demographic most prized by advertisers.
Delighted Fox executives said Tuesday evening’s 90-minute show gave the News Corp. Ltd. -owned network its highest-rated night ever, excluding sports telecasts.
The first edition of “American Idol” proved an unexpected hit last summer and made household names of its eventual winner, former cocktail waitress Kelly Clarkson, and runner-up Justin Guarini. Clarkson won an instant contract with RCA Records and scored a No. 1 hit single with “A Moment Like This,” the song she performed on the show.
The second series enters a prime-time landscape bustling with new “reality” favorites, including ABC’s “The Bachelorette,” which features a bevy of young males vying for the attention of a leggy, blond cheerleader, and Fox’s own reality dating show “Joe Millionaire.”
Cowell, dubbed “Mr. Nasty” by the American media last year, returned to the judging panel for the second edition along with music industry executive Randy Jackson and singer-choreographer Paula Abdul.
Tens of thousands of singers in six U.S. cities auditioned for the second series, with many of them getting the sharp end of Cowell’s tongue for their efforts.
“This says you went to the Fame high school,” Cowell told one nervous contestant. “Did you get thrown out?”
“If you lived 2,000 years ago and sang like that, I think they would have stoned you,” he told another.
The season finale, in which the winner will be announced, will be broadcast in May.
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