Looks like that plucky little talent show on Fox is starting to catch on—Tuesday night's season six premiere of American Idol averaged a whopping 37.3 million viewers and a 15.7 rating/36 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, says The Hollywood Reporter. That's good for No. 2 on the list of most watched Idol episodes ever, sitting behind only the Ruben Studdard-Clay Aiken final episode stand-off from 2003 that averaged 38.1 million viewers. At one point four out of 10 American TV watchers were tuned in to Idol, which featured mostly hapless auditions in Minneapolis (dubbed "Mini-hopeless" by Randy Jackson).
Six seasons in and Idol's ratings keep going up. Incredible. By the way, the show is also on Wednesday night this week. Not that you watch or anything, right?