After 11 seasons of American Idol, Nigel Lythgoe should be pretty happy with the Fox singing competition. The program breathed new life into the variety show genre and gave the music industry a shot in the arm.
Lythgoe has already proven himself and Idol to be long-running successes, so why does he bother lashing out at the competition? Perhaps the years of splitting his time between Idol and So You Think You Can Dance are starting to wear on the guy.
Regardless, the usually unflappable, jovial Brit lashed out at fellow primetime competition shows The Voice and The X Factor during a conference call with media Tuesday afternoon.
“After 11 years, I am thrilled with these ratings,” he explained, as the program heads into the Hollywood round this week.
“Of course there is going to be viewer fatigue. It is the same with too many sci-fi dramas or too many hospital dramas. But after 11 years, I don’t think we should be defending ourselves.”
And yet that’s exactly what he’s being called on to do, as critics point out that a series that debuted to 37.44 million U.S. viewers in 2007 has dropped to its lowest return ratings since Season 1, when no one knew what the heck American Idol was.
The decline can certainly be attributed to viewer fatigue, but it’s also a result of NBC’s The Voice and fellow Fox program The X Factor stealing away eyeballs and further watering down viewership.
Speaking of those two shows, Lythgoe had something to say about them as well, dismissing The Voice as “gimmicky” and The X Factor simply an Idol copy.
“(The Voice) is very gimmicky, which is interesting at this time. I particularly like the relationship between Blake (Shelton) and Adam (Levine). Other than that, I think they need stronger talent,” he opined.
His vitriol comes on the heels of Sunday’s post-Super Bowl second season premiere for The Voice, which garnered 37.6 million viewers south of the border and 2.4 million in Canada.
Monday’s regularly scheduled episode scored 17.7 million in the U.S. and 1.9 million in Canada. The program features Shelton, Levine, Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green sitting in chairs with their backs turned to competitors, choosing to mentor them based solely on their singing voices.
Though impressive, The Voice’s ratings are still well short of Idol’s, which have consistently placed in the Top 3 ratings-wise since 2003.
As for The X Factor, created and starring former Idol judge Simon Cowell, Lythgoe surmised that it “feels like two Idol singing seasons (a year) on Fox.”
X Factor’s inaugural season averaged around 12 million viewers a week in the U.S., and was capped off by Cowell firing host Steve Jones and judges Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger.
“If what you want is real good talent without gimmicks, without fireworks going off and without flashing lights, and just bloody good talent on the stage, then watch American Idol, because that is what you are going to get,” Lythgoe explained.
American Idol airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CTV/Fox and Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on CTV Two/Fox.
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