'Idol' Finale: Awfully Irresistible (or Irresistibly Awful)

By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, May 26, 2006

More than 36 million viewers watched Fox's badtastic "American Idol" finale Wednesday night, in which Taylor Hicks was crowned winner of the singing competition.

That's the largest audience ever for an "Idol" mop-up night, and Fox's highest-rated night ever with entertainment programming.

More 18-to-49-year-olds watched the "Idol" finale than watched the Academy Awards in March. But for sheer train-wreck entertainment value, how can Jon Stewart dying in a room full of self-absorbed Hollywooders hope to compare with the sight of Mary J. Blige swatting away her duet partner, or Toni Braxton writhing like a cat in heat while singing "In the Ghetto" -- plus Prince?

Among viewers of all ages, only three broadcasts have clocked larger crowds this season: the Super Bowl (90.8 million viewers), the Oscars (38.9 million) and the post-Super Bowl episode of "Grey's Anatomy" (37.8 million).

The 8-10 p.m. finale outstripped the final night of the 2003 "Idol" competition, when Ruben Studdard edged out Clay Aiken, by about 2 million viewers. On both nights, the ratings spiked in the 9-10 p.m. hour and this year's crowd was about 3 million more than in '03.

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That new schedule NBC unveiled to advertisers last week? Never mind.

Yesterday, the day the stats came out showing the network had finished the season in fourth place, its head of programming held a phone news conference to announce it was making adjustments to that new schedule to pull Aaron Sorkin's new one-hour, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," away from ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" on Thursday nights.

And since moving one show on the schedule is, NBC Entertainment chief Kevin Reilly noted, like pulling the end of a string, that one move has resulted in changes to five nights on his network's lineup.

NBC was the first network to announce its fall schedule and its biggest news was Sorkin's next drama series getting the Thursday 9 p.m. hour as part of a bid to return some of the luster to NBC's once-great Thursday slate. But when ABC announced its lineup the next day, it included the move of ratings magnet "Grey's Anatomy" from Sundays to Thursdays at 9.

In reaction, NBC has decided to relocate "Studio 60," Sorkin's take on "Saturday Night Live," to Mondays at 10, replacing psychic cop show "Medium." There it will face far less stiff competition: CBS's "CSI: Miami" and ABC's "What About Brian." (On Thursdays it also would have been pitted against CBS's formidable "CSI.")

Replacing "Studio 60" Thursdays at 9: game show "Deal or No Deal."

"Does this exactly fit the profile of what we've done historically or what I'd ideally like to do [on Thursdays] right now? No, but it's the reality of where we are," Reilly said of scheduling "Deal" in the middle of what had once been NBC's unstoppable Must See TV Thursday lineup.

"Medium," now gone from Monday, will be benched to air on Sundays after NFL football completes its season.

The change means NBC will have two new Monday dramas -- the other being 9 p.m.'s "Heroes" -- to promote on Sunday nights during football.

But NBC execs also had scheduled two new dramas for Tuesday that they intended to promote during Sunday football: "Friday Night Lights," about a high school football team, and "Kidnapped."

The suits decided that was one too many new dramas to promote during Sunday game play, so they've moved "Kidnapped" to Wednesday at 10, longtime home to "Law & Order."

"We needed to lighten up Tuesday," Reilly said.

"Law & Order: Criminal Intent" will be moved from Friday to Tuesday to fill the hole left by "Kidnapped." Wednesday's "Law & Order," displaced by "Kidnapped," is moving into that "L&O: CI" Friday 10 p.m. berth.

That means NBC will have two hours of "Law & Order" on Tuesday, including "L&O: Special Victims Unit" at 10.

"Frankly, on any schedule a show is the best lead-in to itself -- 'Lost' is a great lead-in to 'Lost,' " Reilly noted of the ABC program. The two "Law & Order" shows are different "but they're compatible and in some ways . . . an even more formidable block."

But wait, there's more.

With "Kidnapped" transplanted to 10 p.m. Wednesday, NBC brass rethought plans to air two new comedies that night at 9. Those comedies, Jon Lithgow's "20 Good Years" and "30 Rock," Tina Fey's take on "SNL," are flipflopping time slots with Wednesday's returning 8 p.m. weight-loss competition, "The Biggest Loser."

And "Deal's" Friday 8 p.m. hour will now belong to "Crossing Jordan," which was to be a midseason bench player.

The reason for these changes is simple, as explained by Reilly: "We go first. We're in fourth."

NBC has for some time been the first network to unveil its prime-time slate to advertisers during what is called Upfront Week because, after seeing the new lineups, advertisers buy time on programs up front. But NBC has fallen from first place to fourth and the fourth-place network has to counterprogram the stronger shows on other networks. Reilly had said last week that he might tinker with his lineup after seeing what the other networks announced later that week.

Yesterday, he did just that.

One reporter asked if he thought people would say his network looks desperate.

"I'd hope people would say we're smart, 'They got practical and looked at the competitors.' . . . We're saying we believe in our new shows, now that we've got the competitive landscape, let's realign with the schedule that now, in the light of day, seems to make the most sense."