The Wednesday night premiere of Idol was off by 24% (roughly 5M viewers).
Thursday night the ratings dropped even further:
Quote:The shields are down on Fox’s Death Star.
Night 2 of American Idol saw ratings slippage and a new level of vulnerability for the long-running reality sensation. Idol delivered 18 million viewers and a 5.7 adult demo rating, according to Fox’s time-zone-adjusted nationals. That’s down 27 percent from its Thursday premiere last year and off 23 percent from its season premiere the previous night.
http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/01/20/idol-r...drop+again
A lot of things likely contributed to the decline, but I can't help but think back to how the Idol audience for the performance finale dropped by three million people when Haley was eliminated. By that point, the machinations of the show had been laid bare and it was clear to even casual observers that the judging in the later rounds was biased against Haley. No doubt many people -- new viewers and longtime viewers alike -- were left with such a bad taste in their mouth they swore off watching the show again.