An Unprecedented Event

This is going to be a long story - kind of. I don't know if any of you readers out there watch American Idol or not, but I have gotten into it this year. I now see why so many people watch it. It is cool. It reminds me of all those times I got out my pen and paper during the Miss North Carolina or Miss America pageants and did my own judging of the talent. There is a theme each week, and all the contestants will sing a certain song going along with this theme. For example, a song from the 80's, or a song from Billboard's Number One songs, or something like that. So it is fun to see which songs they will pick out and how well they do them. And then the really fun part is to watch the judging. Randy Jackson is pretty much positive about 70-80% of the time. He says things like, "You're the bomb," and says "dawg" a lot. Then there is Paula Abdul - she of "Straight Up" fame (and a few other 80's songs). She is about 95% positive. Hardly ever says anything bad about anyone. And then there's Simon. He is my favorite, and what he says usually goes. He is just, IMO, right on the money every time. Me and Mom were talking a couple nights ago about how he always says exactly what we were thinking about the performances. It is amazing. And so, if Simon doesn't like someone, they are usually either in the bottom three or booted out altogether. And, of course, if - in his opinion - they did a great performance, they will be around for awhile.

So, now to the gist of my post. Last week there was, in host Ryan Seacrest's words, "an unprecedented event" in the history of American Idol. What happens is on Tuesday nights the singers all do their performances, and at the end of the show the phone lines are open and all of America (or almost all) calls in to vote for their favorite performer. Then on Wednesday night they have a half hour show where they go back through the night before and then announce the bottom three, and then say who is the very bottom and is off the show - which is a little on the cruel side if you ask me. So, last week during the Tuesday show when they showed the phone numbers to call, they screwed up three of the numbers.

So on Wednesday night, which was supposed to be the short show, Ryan came out and explained what had happened the night before and how they had to throw out all the results of the phone calls, and they ended up doing the whole Tuesday show again, just showing clips of the performances. And then the phone lines were open at the end of that show.

Now, this is a long story to tell this next part. Because, I guess, they have to be on a tight schedule, they decided to have their short show the next night on Thursday. Now, this Thursday night show was only decided to happen on Wednesday. It was not advertised in TV Guide, or the newspapers or anything. So, I was thinking, well, no one knows about this, how are they going to know it is even on. And then it hit me. Most people in America were watching Wednesday night and heard him say it would be on tomorrow night. So, to make a long story short (or just to end it), today I saw in the paper the ratings for last week. Guess what was #4 for the whole week? Thursday night's no advertised show! What power.