Back to picking through bits and pieces, mostly from other blogs and such:
Kimberley Locke is taping an episode of “Don’t Forget the Lyrics,” in which she’ll sing a snippet of her cover of “Band of Gold.” Constantine is set to show up, too, probably to sing a Queen song. This bit is from Idol Chatter.. Plus, Kellie Pickler’s USO tour in Baghdad in December is chronicled by Great American Country Feb. 16 at 9.
USA Today’s download numbers feature four songs by Daughtry, four by Carrie and two by Jordin (“Tattoo” is up to 1.15 mil and “No Air” up to 175k.) On album sales, Daughtry was top seller with 21K and 3.71 mil total. Carrie’s “Carnival Ride” sold 20K and 1.79 mil total while “Some Hearts” sold 11K, up to 6.23 mil. Jordin is at 49, selling 12K and 461K total. She’s a month from 500K at this pace. Blake’s “Break Anotha” has stalled on the charts around 40 and his album sold just 4K last week and 255K total.
Other sales: Kelly’s Breakaway is at 5.94 million and sold 3,700 copies compared to 2,200 copies of “My December.” (746k); Kellie sold 2,900, 709K total; Elliot, 1,600, 489K; Bucky, 1,200, 321K, Fantasia, 700, 504K, Mandisa, 700, 69K, Bo, 500, 38K; Kat, 300, 366K; Clay, 200, 523K; Ruben, 100, 236K; Constantine, 100, 24K, Taylor, 100, 700K, Kimberlely, 100, 18K, Paris, 100, 21K.
Ratings this week continue to lag far behind year-ago figures. On Tuesday, 28.2 million watched the Omaha auditions, down 17 percent from the comparable episode in 2007. Wednesday’s season-low 25.5 million or so is down about 20 percent. Comparably, traffic on this blog year over year is down so far by about 35%. I’m not sure how much of that has to do with being on this old template or losing a few of our buds to exile, but it’s probably simply lowered interest in the show period. But that doesn’t mean this will become a “Dance War” blog anytime soon!
Cecil Frot-Coutaz, the executive producer for “Idol” we seldom hear from, spoke with the National Association of Televisoin Program Executives conference and pooh-poohed the ratings dropoff, in this NYT piece.. But if I were them, I’d be concerned. The hope is the final 12 are so fascinating, the show will be able to show some growth in March. We’ll see. The fact is, the show is old enough that people who have decided to move on to other shows are going to be tough to bring back in and the pool of potential newbies to replace them is not so great.
Oh-and did anybody catch MTV’s “Randy Jackson’s America’s Best Dance Crew” this past Saturday? It’s actually kind of fun. There’s even a crew who are on old-school roller skates! Sadly, the show had auditions in Atlanta and the only Southern reps are from Florida. The same thing happened with “So You Think You Can Dance.” None of the top 20 were from Atlanta despite the fact auditions were held here. The bottom line seems to be that Atlanta creates better singers than dancers!
