‘American Idol’s First Live Show of the Season Gets Huge Viewership Bump

Fans are loving this season of American Idol. Following the competition series’ first live episode of year, TheWrap reported Idol‘s massive ratings success.

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Per the outlet, the March 30 episode of the show earned 4.86 million total viewers on both ABC and Disney+. That is a six percent increase as compared to last season’s first live show. It’s an 11 percent bump from Idol‘s March 31 show last year.

Additionally, the March 30 episode was the No. 1 show across broadcast and cable Monday night, the outlet reported.

Idol was also a hit on socials. TheWrap, citing ABC’s own reporting, noted that the show was the No. 1 entertainment program on social media of the night, with 1.6 million interactions. In terms of video views across social platforms, those came in at 11.1 million, the outlet reported.

This season, American Idol has pulled in an average of 5.11 million viewers each episode, according to the outlet. That’s a year-over-year gain of five percent.

The rise in viewership has been evident since the first episode of the season, when Idol has a 20 percent increase in total viewers, and was up seven percent in the 18-49 category, the outlet reported. Idol‘s season 24 premiere was its highest rated in four years.

What to Know About American Idol Season 24

The Songs of Faith-themed episode began with host Ryan Seacrest cutting the Top 20 down to 14.

After that, the remaining contestants performed for judges Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie, and Carrie Underwood in the hopes of making the Top 12. All the while, votes poured in from fans around the country.

Seacrest was supposed to announce the dozen contestants moving forward at the end of the episode, but that didn’t actually happen.

Instead of revealing the Top 12, after the performances, Seacrest announced that an “unprecedented” amount of votes—10 million to be exact—rolled in and made it impossible to tabulate the results in time.

“We will not be announcing the elimination tonight,” he said. “First time it’s ever happened. Believe me, I’ve been here every night. We want to make sure we get every vote counted.”

Now, Seacrest will reveal the Top 12 at the top of next week’s episode. Afterwards, the remaining contestants will compete in the Judges’ Song Contest, where they’ll perform ’90s hits secretly picked by the panel.

American Idol airs Mondays on NBC.

Photo by Disney/Eric McCandless