It seems the little paper boat that Fox set to sail back in the summer of 2002 has finally sunk, having jumped more than its fair share of sharks. Yes, folks, Fox have confirmed that they have finally cancelled American Idol.
As Vulture reports, this end of an era will come after the show returns for its 15th and final season next January, just as the season 14 winner’s career has done fizzling. All three current judges will return for the final season (that’s Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban, and Harry Connick, Jr).
The news does not come as a shock to most, as the iconic reality singing competition’s ratings have been dwindling for the past three years, following a long run as the most dominant show on US television, outscoring just about everything else on the tube.
The show was based on the UK’s Pop Idol and became a surprise hit when it debuted in 2002 as part of a new generation of reality blockbusters, which included Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, and The Bachelor.
As the show’s viewership exploded over the course of the first season and winner Kelly Clarkson became a bonafide superstar, Idol became the No. 1 TV show of the ’00s. The show’s most recent season, meanwhile, saw a 25 percent dip in ratings and winner Caleb Johnson does not have a picture on his Wikipedia page.
However, while the show averaged between 25 and 30 million viewers per episode between 2003 and 2010 (particularly impressive considering Fox would air between three and four hours of the show each week), it seemed each season afterwards was met with less enthusiasm from fans, which extended to the winner’s record sales.
The tide truly turned after host Simon Cowell left the show at the end of its ninth season in 2010. Cowell, the show’s most notorious judge and major viewership draw, left to launch an American version of the UK’s The X-Factor, which debuted on Fox in the fall of 2011.
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Soon after, NBC premiered their own reality singing competition, The Voice, further affecting Idol‘s ratings, presumably because many people didn’t know which singing show they were actually tuning into.
With the playground no longer solely theirs, the first Idol season following the premieres of The X-Factor and The Voice opened with the show’s smallest premiere audience since 2003. Ratings have dipped lower and lower every season since.
Fox eventually cut the show down to two hours per week and the juggernaut that had never fallen below 20 million viewers for any episode since its debut fell to under 7 million same-day viewers last week.
Remarking on the end of the show, Simon Cowell tweeted, “Looking back at my time on American Idol we had a great time. We found great artists. Had fun. And to America. Thank you. It was a blast.” That’s nice Simon, thanks for leaving us awash in a sea of crappy reality singing shows! That’s one down, two more to go.
