American Idol Finale Viewership Graph - Not A Pretty Picture!

American Idol Finale Viewers in millions  for each season

I saw this list of viewership of the American Idol finales over the years, and I just had to make it into a graph. It is too dramatic not to see visually. Here is a list of the numbers as well with the winner listed to help us remember which season is which:

  Season 1 (Kelly) : 23.021 million
  Season 2 (Ruben): 38.060 million (peak)
  Season 3 (Fantasia): 28.839 million
  Season 4 (Carrie): 30.269 million
  Season 5 (Taylor): 36.383 million (2nd highest)
  Season 6 (Jordin): 30.755 million
  Season 7 (David C): 31.688 million
  Season 8 (Kris): 28.838 million
  Season 9 (Lee): 24.215 million
  Season 10 (Scotty): 29.288 million
  Season 11 (Phillip): 21.5 million
  Season 12 (Candice): 14.3 million

Last year had been the lowest finale number with viewership slightly lower than the first year finale. But this years total viewership was only about 2/3 the viewership number of last year. Season 10 (Scotty and Lauren's year) had seemed like an upward trend with viewership increasing, but since the peak of seasons 2 through 7 (with viewer numbers around 30 million or higher) there has been a decrease ever since with Season 10 now looking more like an aberration. FOX must not be too happy about the shape of American Idol these days!