Idol ratings drop -- Did they shoot themselves in the foot in shooting down Haley?

[buzzenator]

The Wednesday night premiere of Idol was off by 24% (roughly 5M viewers).

Thursday night the ratings dropped even further:

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.

If you live in a "Haley Centric" world, which all Haliens do, then this is not only plausible but must be the only logical conclusion. Call it Haley's Revenge! Nigel's short term solution last year was to turn a page from the "Quiz Show" manifesto...when it doubt "Rig the Results". It worked for TPTB at Idol for one year, but in the end it turned off so many viewers who saw that the fix was in. I love it...and it conforms to all things Haley, which is our mantra.

Notice how Nigel has purposely played down the country factor, so far in season 11. There had to be a thousand cowboy dudes with low voices trying out, and we haven't seen one. He has decided that this is not a country year for guys (unlike season 10)...which was, depending how you look at it a blessing/curse for Haley last year.

Oh, I see...I outed myself on watching this year...but it is only for the purpose of seeing/hearing a Haley reference