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Access Atlanta > American Idol Buzz > Archives > 2008 > April > 10
Thursday, April 10, 2008
4/10: Top 8 Idol elimination night: Michael Johns out!!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark me stunned. Biggest shocker of the year: Michael Johns is gone! Ryan cruelly gave him momentary hope, mentioning how they didn’t eliminate anybody the week of “Idol Gives Back” a year ago. But no charity this year: he really is outta here.
“I’m definitely surprised,” said a visibly flustered Johns. “I enjoyed singing that song. It’s a song about Dreams. [“Dream On” by Aerosmith]. If there’s a song to go out on, that’s not a bad one.”
Even Simon says some kind words after a few not so kind words: “Based on the performance, it wasn’t the right song. You have to learn a lesson. I’m going to miss you. You’re a very good singer and a very very nice guy.” Michael goes out to the judges and gets big hugs from Paula and Randy after singing “Dream On” out near the judges. (Michael skips the big notes at the end this time around but who cares?)
On the bright side, for the first time this season, I got the bottom three correct: Syesha, Carly and Michael. But I thought the former Buckhead denizen was safe. So I’ve been wrong picking who gets ousted four out of five times. Not good.
“It’s freaking shocking as hell,” said his friend Jason Ergle. “I don’t know what else to say.”
Going first didn’t help Michael but I’m seriously surprised he was cut out after having never been in the bottom three and gaining what I thought some currency during Dolly Parton week after a great version of “It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right.”
Well, I’ll be calling his buds tomorrow and getting their reactions.
If you skipped last night’s charity event (and a good number of you did), “Idol” provided a quick four-minute summary tonight, including Fergie upstaging Heart and Kimmel ribbin’ Simon’s nips. Some leftover pleas were thrown in that didn’t make the cut last night. And they repeated the lip-synching bit with celebrities from last year using “I’m a Believer.” Seen this year: Eddie Izzard, Rob Schneider, George Lopez, Zack & Cody, Dr. Phil, Kobe Bryant, Michael Chiklis, Cat Deeley. Also: a rather lengthy Forest Whitaker video from Angola is featured midway through. And the Presidential candidate videos pop up tonight instead. (Nice joke, John McCain!)
Over 31 million votes came in, the most this season.
Up first: Brooke White. She’s safe and will probably miss her sister’s wedding. David Cook is safe, too, despite using up some his goodwill Tuesday. And David Archuleta came up third and shockingly, he’s safe, too. And the girls scream incessantly.
At 8:40 p.m., they get to Jason Castro, who is also safe. So now they’ve got four people and only one is not in the bottom three. Kristy Lee Cook comes in at No. 5 and she’s also safe.
Amount raised so far: $60 million. Not quite as much as last year - the lower ratings certainly didn’t help. But all the extra promotion tonight should bump the figure over last year’s $76 million.
The show featured Chris Brown with Jordin Sparks doing “No Air,” which proved why Jordin won last year. The song is within 8 to 10 days of hitting No. 1 (though “Bleeding Love” by U.K. star Leona Lewis might pass her before she gets the chance). “No Air” has also passed 1 million in downloads. Her CD is now past 630K. And “Tattoo” has surpassed 1.5 million downloads.
There was some controversy that the lines of last night’s finale song was censored to omit the word “Jesus,” using the word “shepherd.” This time around, in a reprise, the word “Jesus” was uttered loud and clear. The song ends with Syesha and Carly, which might be how the end looks in about 40 minutes.
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4/10: A new measurement tool? Stamps! And Idol Gives Back ratings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rather than sandwich Josh Gracin’s interview in between Idol Gives Back and the results show blog entries, I’ll hold off until tomorrow.
But I got an interesting email from TiVo that predicts Syesha Mercado (above) is a goner tonight based on how many times a particular performance was watched in time-shifted form. Here’s the press release:
TiVo Inc. announced today a prediction of the “American Idol” contestant most likely to be voted off the show in this week’s eliminations. For past four weeks, TiVo has been using its second-by-second audience measurement to determine which performers had the highest and lowest viewership. It turns out, this information, especially among viewers who are watching on a timeshifted basis, is highly predictive of which contestant will be voted off. Viewers tend to rewind and watch their favorite performances multiple times, while fast-forwarding through the ones they don’t like. These viewing preferences correlate with voting patterns (for each week TiVo has measured). As always, the viewing information was collected in strict accordance to TiVo’s privacy policy, which uses a sample of completely anonymous data from 20,000 random anonymous subscribers, analyzed only in on an aggregated basis.
David Archuleta ranked in the highest audience numbers during his performance.
Syesha Mercado was the lowest on the totem pole this week, with the fewest viewers sticking around for her performance. For the past 4 weeks running, the person with the lowest viewership as recorded by TiVo subscribers has been voted to go home.
Intriguing!
Paula Abdul on Q100 today said she’s really worried for Carly Smithson, who is clearly in the danger zone, too. Some folks think Brooke might join them and make it an all-female bottom three but could Michael Johns be in trouble, too?
-Usually postage stamps only feature dead people but Idol has convinced the U.S. Postal Service, desperate for attention, to sell “Idol” stamps with “Idol” winners. According to USA Today,, if the limited edition stamps sell out, that would be $7 million for “Idol Gives Back.”
The stamps are not being sold in post offices. They’re available online only at PhotoStamps or linked via AmericanIdol.com, a product of Stamps.com, which offers USPS-approved, Internet-based postage services.
-“Idol Gives Back” pulled in only about 70% of the regular audience, not a surprise. It averaged 17.6 million from 8 to 10 p.m. based on preliminary numbers. Last year, the show pulled in 26 million viewers but that was because there was a pretense of a results show.
