Idol Clobbers the Grammy's


LOS ANGELES - The pop star wannabes of American Idol outshone the likes of Madonna, U2 and Coldplay at the Grammys on Wednesday night as the hit TV talent contest clobbered music's highest honors in the Nielsen ratings.
American Idol, airing on the Fox network opposite the first hour of CBS's Grammy Awards telecast, averaged 28 million viewers, compared to 15 million for the Grammys, Nielsen Media Research reported in early figures on Thursday.

The fact that more viewers were caught up in the Hollywood auditions of amateur singers than in the glitz and glamour of the world's hottest-selling recording stars was further testament to the popularity of Idol, the most watched show on U.S. television.

It also underscored the continuing ratings decline of the Grammys and other entertainment awards shows in recent years.

The 3 1/2-hour Grammy telecast as a whole drew 17 million viewers, down nearly 2 million from last year and the smallest audience for the show in at least 11 years, Nielsen said.

By comparison, 26.3 million tuned in for the 2004 show, when Coldplay won for record of the year and hip-hop duo OutKast clinched the prize for album of the year.

Among performers taking the Grammy stage during the first hour of Wednesday's broadcast were Madonna, who opened the show, British rockers Coldplay, R&B singer John Legend, who was named best new artist, and Irish rock band U2, which collected five awards.

The first artist presented with an award on the Grammy telecast was Kelly Clarkson, who got her big break as the inaugural American Idol champion but neglected to mention in her acceptance speech the Fox show that made her famous.

The highly emotional Clarkson, who later performed on the show, took home two Grammy statuettes—beating out Paul McCartney for best pop vocal album and Mariah Carey for best female pop vocal performance.

American Idol was not the only show to steal some thunder from the music awards on Wednesday.

ABC's castaway thriller Lost ranked as the second-most watched show of the night behind Idol, with 18.8 million viewers in head-to-head competition against the second hour of the Grammys, from 9 to 10 p.m.

While the Grammys topped the 9-10 p.m. time slot with 19.3 million viewers, its average for the entire broadcast was less than for that for Lost.

The CBS network, a division of CBS Corp., has aired the Grammy telecast since 1973. American Idol is in its fifth season on Fox, a unit of News Corp. Ltd. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co.
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