I came across an Access Atlanta article yesterday that contains some statistics about American Idol. I found these statistics interesting and figured I would share some of my thoughts about them.

Led by “American Idol,” Fox has been the highest rated network in adults 18-49 for the past seven seasons (Fox was also tied for first in fourth quarter 2011 in the demo for only the second time in a decade, led by such new shows as “The X Factor,” “Terra Nova” and “The New Girl”).

In case you don’t know, the 18-49 category is the sweet spot for networks where advertisers are concerned. Shows with a higher 18-49 rating can charge advertisers more to air ads on the show, no matter what the overall ratings are. Last season, American Idol averaged an 8.8 rating in this coveted category for the performance shows and a 7.7 rating on the results show. Dancing with the Stars on the other hand averaged a mid-3 rating for their performance shows and a high-2 for their results show. The difference in this rating between the two shows is why AI can charge upwards of $500,000 per 30-second ad for a commercial.

The 18-49 rating is the main reason why The X Factor was renewed for a second season. The show averaged around a high-3 rating for the season. This is a higher 18-49 rating than Dancing with the Stars while averaging nearly 8 million fewer total viewers than DWTS. It’s also the reason why FOX hasn’t flat-out cancelled the expensive sci-fi series, Terra Nova. It averaged a mid-2 18-49 rating for the season, which makes it a Top 20 show in that category. It’s also what allowed the show to be profitable this season despite the reported $1 million budget for each show.

The median age of “American Idol” viewers has increased each and every season since Year 1 (31.9) to year 10 (47.4).

This median age is important because it can tell you what direction a show is heading in that all important 18-49 category. The fans haven’t simply gotten older while watching the show. If so, the median age for last season would have been around 41.9, 10 years more than when it started. Instead, it shows two things: 1) Of the millions of people who have stopped watching the show, a large portion of them have been younger people; and 2) Most of the new fans to the show are older.

The 18-49 ratings back this up. Since Season 5, which is the best rated of all the seasons, the 18-49 rating has gone downhill. In Season 5, the performance shows averaged about a mid-13 rating and the results show a mid-12 rating. And as I said earlier, the 18-49 rating last season was 8.8 and 7.7, respectively. That’s a large drop, though still the highest rated 18-49 series on TV.

So while American Idol‘s 18-49 rating gives it plenty of room to breathe before ever having to worry about being cancelled, they will want to find a way to increase the younger viewership. And it shows that what they’ve done so far, which is mainly lowering the eligibility age, isn’t working.

Year 5 (in 2006) was the highest rated averaging 30.3 million viewers that year Taylor Hicks beat Kat McPhee. McPhee will be starring in the new NBC series Smash which debuts the day after The Super Bowl next month. Year 5 was the last time a regularly scheduled program averaged over 30 million viewers for an entire season on television.

Year 5 was also one of the last years that had a large number of contestants that people could rally around. It was also the last season in which fans of one contestant simply couldn’t stand some or all of the other contestants. It was definitely the year of loyalty, though you wouldn’t know it if your name was Chris Daughtry since his fans left him hanging in fourth place.

Still, from my perspective, Season 5 was the last great American Idol season. In every season up to that point, there was something for everyone, great singing, and even better competition. Since then, many of the seasons have been too easy to predict to get that heavily invested in them. If the show can figure out how to recapture the magic of Seasons 1 – 5, it would go a long way in getting people interested in watching again.

Year 10 (in 2011) saw an increase in viewing, the first time that has happened since Year 5.

While a lot of people seem to give the credit to Jennifer Lopez for this increase, I think most of the credit goes to Steven Tyler. During the auditions, you just never knew what that man was going to say, and when he did say it, most of it had to be bleeped out. Say what you will about having someone like that on a show, and trust me, I said a lot about it on the Idol Radio Show last season, you have to admit that Steven was the reason why a lot of people were watching.

American Idol toned Steven down once the live shows came around, and that was likely a good thing. Even with a seven second delay and 50 people ready to bleep out anything he says, you really don’t want to chance it. Something will likely get through at some point and cause a lot of problems. Unfortunately, Steven also seemed to take that to mean he needed to put out the fire he had during the auditions and Hollywood Week. Add to that a judging panel that mostly fawned all over the contestants, even when they sucked, and I’m surprised the ratings didn’t decrease overall. With all three judges back, AI has a chance to increase their ratings again if they can get Steven to keep his fire and keep all the judges from brown nosing all the contestants.

Highest telecast was the Year 2 (in 2003) finale Ruben Studdard vs. Clay Aiken, which averaged 38.1 million viewers.

There is a reason for the Season 2 Finale having the highest ratings of any American Idol finale: it was the only year where the winner wasn’t known long before the phone lines opened. The battle between Clay and Reuben was one that spawns legends, and will likely be the most talked about finale long after AI has gone to that great antenna in the sky.

Almost every other season has either been predictable (please, like anyone really thought Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks, Jordin Sparks, or Scotty McCreery wasn’t going to win) or caused us to yawn (like anyone cared who won between Fantasia and Diana DeGarmo in Season 3, or anything that happened at all in Season 9). The best finale match-ups since Reuben/Clay was the David Cook / David Archuleta match-up in Season 7 and the Kris Allen / Adam Lambert match-up in Season 8.

According to an Ad Age survey, the ad rate for American Idol in 2012 ranges between $468,100 (Thursday) & $502,900 (Wednesday). Only NBC’s Sunday Night Football in prime time in 2011-12 was higher at $512,367

This goes back to the first statistic we covered: the higher the 18-49 rating, the more a network can charge to air an ad on a show.

Now if I can just convince Sir Darryl to take out a 30-second ad for the Idol Radio Show on one of the upcoming Thursday night American Idol shows………..

So what do you think of these statistics? Are they about what you thought? Were you expecting something different? Do you agree with my opinions about the stats? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.