American Idol will be back for a ninth season on ABC.
It will mark the 24th year overall for the competition series.
Season 23 is currently underway with Ryan Seacrest hosting and Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie as returning judges. Season 4 winner Carrie Underwood replaced Katy Perry as a judge this year.
On May 5, the top eight contestants were given three songs to pick from that were selected by the judges. Josh King was eliminated.
There are two more episodes left before the finale airs on May 18.
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The April 27 episode that kicked off the live shows and featured guest mentor James Taylor rocked the 8 to 10 p.m. window with 5.31M average viewers, per live + same-day data from Nielsen, up 18% from the week prior to deliver a season high audience in that time period.
It also marked the show’s largest overall audience since its post-Oscars debut in March, when it had an incredibly strong lead-in. The April 27 episode scored a 0.53 rating among adults 18-49, ranking as the top entertainment program across broadcast and cable in the two-hour time slot.
Idol is produced by Fremantle and 19 Entertainment, a part of Sony Pictures Television. Executive producers include Megan Wolflick, also serving as showrunner with Eli Holzman and Aaron Saidman serving as executive producers for 19 Entertainment. Fremantle distributes the series worldwide.
