Last night was the premiere of the 12th season (really? 12?) of American Idol, and if you watched it, you were probably enthralled with the is it real / is it fake feud between Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj. If you want, you can head over to Gawker right now to see some highlights from last night’s episode, which included a bitch fight over Mean Girls (sploosh) and British accents, but the only thing you really need to know is that it did absolutely nothing to help Idol reclaim its audience. From EW …
Fox’s American Idol returned Wednesday night to its lowest-rated and least-watched regular-season premiere telecast ever (the first season aired during the summer and generally isn’t counted). Idol delivered 17.9 million viewers and a 6.0 adults 18-49 demo rating. That’s down 19 percent from last year’s opener, which was the previous lowest-ever record-holder. The numbers also mean last night’s Idol premiere will not be the most-watched entertainment show this week — Tuesday’s NCIS had 22.9 million viewers. This is the first time another series was seen by more viewers than Idol during its regular season premiere week.
Wait, hold on … American Idol gives you the gift of Mariah and Nicki arguing about Mean Girls for so long that contestants actually walk in and out of the room without anyone noticing, and you don’t even care? This is why we can’t have nice things, people.