Frank Sinatra was an American idol once, but not anymore; show saluting him is ratings dud

‘Idol’ saluting Frank Sinatra a ratings dud

NEW YORK — Memo to “American Idol” producers: In 2010, Lady Gaga beats Frank Sinatra.

‘Ol Blue Eyes was another generation’s idol, certainly bigger than Gaga in his day. But last Tuesday’s “American Idol” devoted to his songs was seen by 17.5 million viewers, the least-watched regularly scheduled episode of the competition since 2003, the Nielsen Co. said.

The next night when Lady Gaga was the featured performer, the audience size increased by 2.1 million people, Nielsen said.

Generally this season, Tuesday “Idol” shows have outdrawn Wednesday ones, so it seems a clear indication that Sinatra’s songs, even as arranged by Harry Connick Jr., didn’t appeal to the show’s younger audience. Sinatra died in 1998.

ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” was the most popular prime-time show last week, narrowly beating the Wednesday “Idol.” The seven most-watched scripted shows were on CBS.

CBS was the most popular network, averaging 10.1 million viewers in prime-time (6.4 rating, 11 share). ABC had 8.2 million viewers (5.2, 9). Third place Fox had 8.1 million (4.8, 8), but won among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic that it targets. NBC averaged 5.6 million (3.5, 6), the CW had 1.9 million (1.3, 2) and ION Television had 980,000 (0.7, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a prime-time average of 3.4 million viewers (1.7 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 1.2 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura had 970,000 (0.5, 1), Estrella had 230,000 and Azteca 170,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.4 million viewers (5.0, 11), but its margin of victory over second place ABC’s 7 million (4.8, 10) was the smallest since Diane Sawyer took over as ABC anchorwoman. The “CBS Evening News” had 5 million viewers (3.5, 8). Despite a busy news week with the Nashville flooding, aborted Times Square bombing and Gulf of Mexico oil spill, network evening news viewership was down 1.2 million from a month ago.

A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of May 3-9, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 19.64 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 19.58 million; “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 17.5 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 15.1 million; “The Mentalist,” CBS, 14.85 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 14.34 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 14.15 million; “Survivor: Heroes vs Villains,” CBS, 13.06 million; “The Good Wife,” CBS, 12.88 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 12.39 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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