hasn`t it been number 1 rated for 5 straight years? fickle american public still loves it. I still watch it.

I think the best thing they do is that they still treat it like an event. With those kind of ratings I could definitely see the pressure to try to do it twice a year. By holding it until every January it allows the build up, and it also gives the public some time off from the show.

kinda like a new season of nfl or major league baseball. brillant marketing. one of the few shows I watch regulary.

For the foreseeable future... Nothing is even close as a rival. Even if the ratings drop, there is really nothing to take its place.

Agree with this. I think of how NBC practically killed the Apprentice by scheduling 3 editions (2 Trump and 1 Martha Stewart) in the same year, with two of them running at the same time on back-to-back days. I've always been surprised Fox avoided this temptation, although it maybe have been as much 19 Entertainment/Simon Fuller/etc.

Once Simon Cowell leaves, the show is dead. Even Randy or Paula leaving would have a significant impact on ratings.

But none of them have any reason to leave. They have nothing better to go to (nor will they ever).

That's because there's no better gig out there.

I could see Simon walking away...he has plenty of money and several hit shows in the UK (including X Factor) to fall back on.

But the other poster is correct - this show is a hit until Simon leaves it. He IS the show, regardless of what anyone says.

The show is contracted through season 9. Simon mentioned in an Entertainment Weekly interview that he will probably leave after that. He says he thinks the American public will probably be sick and tired him and the show by then.

At which point Fox will counter with a $25 million a season contract and he will come back

doesn`t Simon co-own the show with the other Simon and didn`t he bank 200 million last year more the bruce springsteen?

it'll probably end the day I die considering I find it completely worthless

QFT.

The ratings for AI were slipping a bit at the start of this season, but it seems like it's crawling back up into the 30+m's again.

No shit. Sit behind a table, sip a Coke, and tell people who suck that they suck. There's not a person in the world who couldn't do it.

Well at least sip something from a Coke glass. I've always wondered what's in those glasses and how much Coke pays for the privilage of having it's logo on the glasses. Shows how much I pay attention to the singing.

Yes there is: Paula Abdul.

I would have thought people would have gotten tired of this novelty by now but I was wrong. That this passes as Entertainment says a lot about people as a whole.

Talent shows and game shows have been around since the invention of radio and TV.

I'm sick and tired os people who act like this is a brand-new scourge they have to deal with.

What really set AI apart and makes me disgusted that people like this crap are the auditions. If they cut the audition part and made the show just about the talent contest, I wouldn't feel nearly as angry about it. In that case, it would be Nashville Star or Star Search.

I hope the ratings are down for that part. The most offensive part is that if you want to do terrible people pretending they have talent, it has been done so much better in the past (see: Barris, Chuck).

ABC did the same thing by expanding Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, killing that show in primetime fairly quickly. Did it even get a 2nd season in primetime?

I can see it going for a while longer. Fox knows the drill, so I don't think they're likely to drill this thing into the ground by over-programming it all over the place. They make a ton of $ and have huge ratings: why fuck with that? I know, I know... it's Fox. But, still, they seem to get it so far.

Ratings may fall again. Dancing will take some of its audience next month. And if I'm not mistaken, ratings are better for auditions than afterwards anyway.

I think some people are getting tired of it. I'll just take myself for example. A few years ago, I couldn't wait until the show aired. The novelty has worn off. Nothing has changed much in all these seasons. Now, I've skipped the auditions entirely and see the same stuff from the singers and the judges the past couple of nights. If things don't pick up, I'm tuning off. I think it was that kind of indifference that caused AI to take a little hit.

It would've been nice if American Idol took some chances and kept Josiah Leming (British sounding kid). I just listened to some of his songs on his myspace, and even though I wasn't a fan of his audition - that kid has talent. He puts real emotion into his songs. I think we're seeing boring cookie cutter singers this year. That may hurt the ratings in the long run. We'll see how it turns out.

I never really watched Ai untill last season. I would pay attention at the final 2 in the previous seasons, but never followed an entire season till last year. I think there are more people like me who just gave up hating on this show and started enjoying it for what it is, a yearly pop culture event.