American Idol moved Hollywood Week from Los Angeles to Nashville, Tennessee and it has seemingly paid off. The move helped ABC’s talent competition land its best ratings night since its premiere and was up more than a quarter over last season’s equivalent episode.
It also rated higher than NBC’s The Voice, which will clearly please those within the Mouse House.
The episode saw the likes of Madison Moon and Braden Rumfelt praised by the judges – Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie and Carrie Underwood – with 13 contestants being put through to the next round. However, others were left on tenterhooks ahead of the second part of Hollywood Week next week, where 127 contestants are dwindled down to the Top 30.
Showrunner Megan Michaels Wolflick told Deadline that Hollywood Week is IP, regardless of where it takes place. “The momentum of getting through, getting a golden ticket, making it to Hollywood in the past has been maybe sometimes months. There was a momentum that I wanted to experiment with. The music industry in Nashville is just as strong as it is in LA, too. It is a hub and a dream for people to go to.”
The episode earned 5.52M total viewers and a 0.45 rating among Adults 18-49 in Live+Same Day ratings, per Nielsen. This was its best audience since the premiere episode and a 16% increase in total viewers from last week.
ABC was quick to note that it also outperformed the season premiere of The Voice on NBC. The Voice got 3.84M viewers, albeit in a 9pm-11pm timeslot, rather than 8pm-10pm, which is where Idol lives.
The network stressed that Idol “scored its largest margin of victory ever in total viewers over The Voice during its nine-season run on ABC”.
