Backchannelmedia

Backchannelmedia

NEW YORK, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- With only a week before the finale of FOX's American Idol, The Nielsen Company today reported data trends about American Idol and its contestants. Highlights include:

-- TV Ratings -- People age 35-49 watched American Idol Season 7 the most,

making up almost 29% of the total audience. The most watched episode

this season was the premiere episode on Tuesday, 1/15/08 averaging 33

million viewers.

-- Mobile -- The average American Idol participant voted via text message

38 times in April 2008.

-- Music -- Kelly Clarkson is the best selling American Idol contestant

with album and digital download sales of 18.9 million. Carrie

Underwood is second with album and digital download sales of 15.7

million.

-- Online -- Male contestants David Cook, David Archuleta and Jason Castro

dominate the show's consumer discussion online with 14.3% and 12.5% and

10.5% buzz volume, respectively. The most popular American Idol

contestant from opinions and feedback from Hey! Nielsen's online panel

is Carrie Underwood. Web traffic to American Idol websites saw the

most unique visitors in March 2007.

-- Advertising -- During 2007, American Idol featured 4,349 product

placement occurrences. So far in 2008, the number of placements is

surging -- the program racked up 3,291 occurrences the first three

months of 2008 alone.

TV Ratings

American Idol's highest viewership was Season 5, where more than 30 million people watched on average, compared to 12 million the first season and 27 million this current season. The east central part of the United States has the highest viewing levels above the national average, while the southwest has the lowest viewing levels below average.

American Idol Season 7 Viewership by Region

% of Total % of American % Over or Under

Region US Idol Audience National Average

Southeast 20% 23% 15%

Northeast 20% 21% 5%

Pacific 21% 19% -10%

East Central 12% 14% 17%

West Central 15% 14% -7%

Southwest 12% 9% -25%

Source: The Nielsen Company

People age 35-49 watched American Idol Season 7 the most, making up almost 29% of the total audience. The most watched episode this season was the premiere episode on Tuesday, 1/15/08 averaging 33 million viewers. The most watched American Idol episode ever was the final hour of Season 2 on Wednesday, 5/21/2003 -- more than 38 million viewers tuned in live to watch the face off between winner Ruben Studdard and runner-up Clay Aiken.

American Idol Season 7 Audience Composition

P2-11 P12-17 P18-24 P25-34 P35-49 P50-64 P65+

% of Total Audience 8% 7% 7% 14% 29% 23% 11%

Source: The Nielsen Company

Mobile

According to Nielsen Mobile, the average American Idol participant voted via text message 38 times in April 2008, with the April 29th show generating many more texts per person than the April 1st show. Women tend to vote via text with greater frequency than men: in April 2008, female voters of American Idol submitted 44% more text-message votes than their male counterparts. Voting by text is only available to AT&T subscribers. Nielsen Mobile tracks text message voting and contest behavior through its panel of 43,000 U.S. wireless lines.

Average Texts Per Person - American Idol Season 7

April 2008 Apr-01 Episode Apr-29 Episode

Avg Votes Per Person 38 9 27

Source: NielsenMobile

Music

Kelly Clarkson is the best selling American Idol contestant with album and digital download sales of 18.9 million. Carrie Underwood is second with album and digital download sales of 15.7 million.

# of American Idol Album and Digital Downloads Sold

Artist Total Album Sales Total Digital Downloads Sales *

Kelly Clarkson 9.5 million 9.4 million

Carrie Underwood 8.5 million 7.3 million

Clay Aiken 4.8 million 481,000

Daughtry 4.1 million 5.3 million

Ruben Studdard 2.5 million 252,000

Fantasia 2.3 million 706,000

Jordin Sparks 807,000 4.1 million

Kellie Pickles 759,000 896,000

Josh Gracin 741,000 703,000

Bo Bice 725,000 479,000

Taylor Hicks 702,000 346,000

Elliott Yamin 590,000 1.2 million

Katharine McPhee 371,000 1.1 million

Bucky Covington 343,000 341,000

Blake Lewis 340,000 656,000

William Hung 239,000 115,000

Kimberley Locke 236,000 164,000

Justin Guarini 143,000 28,000

Source: Nielsen SoundScan, through May 18, 2008. Snapshot of American Idol contestant music sales

* Nielsen SoundScan began tracking digital download sales in June 2003

Winning isn't everything. Clay Aiken was the runner-up of 2003, but his first album has outsold winner Ruben Studdard (2.8 million to date, versus 1.8 million). Chris Daughtry came in fourth during the 2006 season, but his band Daughtry had the best selling album by any of that year's finalists.

"Daughtry" sold 2.5 million copies during calendar year 2007, making it the year's fifth best selling album. Prior winner Carrie Underwood was second among "Idol" contestants that year, moving 1.7 million copies of second album "Carnival Ride" in less than three months.

Highest-Selling Albums by American Idol Contestants

Artist Album # Sold

Carrie Underwood Some Hearts (2005) 6.4 million

Kelly Clarkson Breakaway (2004) 6.0 million

Daughtry Daughtry (2007) 4.0 million

Clay Aiken Measure of a Man (2003) 2.8 million

Source: Nielsen SoundScan, through May 4, 2008

Until 2006, when the winner was Taylor Hicks, each season's "American Idol" champ sold at least 1 million copies on his or her debut album. Hicks' self-titled album has sold 702,000 to date.

Reigning "Idol" queen Jordin Sparks has moved 717,000 copies of her debut set to date, but with current single "No Air," featuring Chris Brown, spending its 10th week in the top 10 on The Billboard Hot 100, her album still has legs, posting gains in four of the last five weeks.

Twice this year, performances by recently exiled contestant Jason Castro prompted huge digital sales spikes and album gains for original artists. His homage to Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" prompted the Buckley download to rocket to No. 1 on Hot Digital Songs, selling 178,000 copies. A few weeks later, Castro's take on Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwo'Ole's version of "What A Wonderful World" sent Iz's track to No. 11 on Hot Digital Songs.

"American Idols" Appearing on The Billboard Hot 100 singles chart - Peak

Position in the Top 3

Artist Title Peak Position Peak Date

Jordin Sparks

Duet With

Chris Brown "No Air" 3 April 26, 2008

Taylor Hicks "Do I Make You Proud" 1 July 1, 2006

Bo Bice "Inside Your Heaven" 2 July 9, 2005

Carrie Underwood "Inside Your Heaven" 1 July 2, 2005

Kelly Clarkson "Since U Been Gone" 2 April 9, 2005

Fantasia "I Believe" 1 July 10, 2004

Clay Aiken "This is the Night" 1 June 28, 2003

Ruben Studdard "Flying Without Wings" 2 June 28, 2003

Kelly Clarkson "A Moment Like This" 1 October 5, 2002

Source: The Billboard Hot 100 through the charted date May 15, 2008

"American Idols" Appearing on The Billboard 200 albums chart - Peak Position

in the Top 3

Artist Title Peak Position Peak Date

Carrie Underwood "Carnival Ride" 1 November 10, 2007

Kelly Clarkson "My December" 2 July 14, 2007

Elliott Yamin "Elliott Yamin" 3 April 7, 2007

Katharine McPhee "Katharine McPhee" 2 February 17, 2007

Daughtry "Daughtry" 1 February 3, 2007

Taylor Hicks "Taylor Hicks" 2 December 30, 2006

Clay Aiken "A Thousand Different 2 October 7, 2006

Ways"

Soundtrack "American Idol Season 3 June 10, 2006

5: Encores"

Carrie Underwood "Some Hearts" 2 December 3, 2005

Kelly Clarkson "Breakaway" 3 December 18, 2004

Ruben Studdard "Soulful" 1 December 27, 2003

Clay Aiken "Measure of a Man" 1 November 1, 2003

Soundtrack "American Idol Season 2: 2 May 17, 2003

Classic American Love

Songs"

Kelly Clarkson "Thankful" 1 May 3, 2003

Source: The Billboard 200 through the charted date May 15, 2008

Online

Nielsen Online monitors consumer-generated content from approximately 70 million blogs on the Internet before, during and after Fox's hit reality competition show, American Idol. Contestants, judges and the program itself are audited to provide advertisers with both quantitative and qualitative insight around popularity, virality and sentiment.

Male contestants David Cook, David Archuleta and Jason Castro dominate the show's consumer discussion online with 14.3% and 12.5% and 10.5% buzz volume, respectively. Brooke White continues to be included in conversations after being voted off two weeks ago with 7.5% buzz volume, while Syesha Mercado trails with 5.4%, more than two times less the amount of buzz compared with Cook and Archuleta.

The most popular American Idol contestant from opinions and feedback from Hey! Nielsen's online panel is Carrie Underwood. David Archuleta is this season's most popular according to HeyNielsen.com.

Most Popular American Idol Contestants*

1) Carrie Underwood

2) Clay Aiken

3) David Archuleta

4) David Cook

5) Kelly Clarkson

Most Popular American Idol Contestants Season 7*

1) David Archuleta

2) David Cook

3) Jason Castro

4) Brooke White

5) Danny Norriega

Source: HeyNielsen.com, *Based on member opinions and feedback

Buzz for judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson has remained consistent throughout the January through May time frame, with notable increases in consumer discussion about Paula Abdul. The February spike for the show's female host is linked to her pre Super Bowl game performance, up 200% from earlier that year. The more recent increase on April 30th, up an additional 83% since the February spike, was garnered by Abdul's critique on two performances for David Castro although the contestant only sang one time.

Web traffic to American Idol websites saw the most unique visitors during March 2007. Of the top 10 months ranked by unique visitors, people spent the most amount of time on American Idol websites during Season 5, where time spent per person was over 10 minutes during the months of March, April and May 2006.

Web Traffic to American Idol Sites*

Month Unique Audience Time per Person

Mar-07 7,273,000 0:07:03

Apr-07 6,478,000 0:07:13

May-06 6,153,000 0:12:33

May-07 5,234,000 0:10:01

Mar-06 5,171,000 0:12:28

Mar-08 4,298,000 0:08:13

Apr-06 4,043,000 0:10:41

Feb-08 3,891,000 0:07:31

Feb-07 3,516,000 0:07:57

May-05 3,375,000 0:07:58

Source: Nielsen Online, *Web traffic for American Idol is represented by traffic to either americanidol.com or idolonfox.com, depending on which garnered the most traffic for the given time period, Time per Person (hh:mm:ss)

Advertising

Top Advertisers

Coca-Cola was the top American Idol season 7 advertiser for the first quarter of 2008, followed by AT&T and Ford. Procter & Gamble and Apple rounded out the top five. All five of these companies have advertised on American Idol since 2002 and, with the exception of Apple, all of them also held slots among the top five American Idol advertisers in season 6 (Jan. 16 - March 23, 2007).

Top Advertisers: Full Season 6

(Jan. 16 - May 23, 2007)

1) AT&T

2) Ford

3) Coca-Cola

4) Procter & Gamble

5) National Amusements (movie theaters)

Source: The Nielsen Company

Top Advertisers: Partial Season 7

(Jan. 15 - March 31, 2008)

1) Coca-Cola

2) AT&T

3) Ford

4) Procter & Gamble

5) Apple

Source: The Nielsen Company

Product Placements

During season 6 (Jan. 16 - May 23, 2007), American Idol featured 4,349 product placement occurrences. As of March 31, 2008, the number of placements featured during season 7 was surging -- American Idol had already racked up 3,291 occurrences.

Coca-Cola and AT&T Wireless were the top two featured brands on American Idol during the first quarter of 2008. In season 6, Cingular Wireless rounded out the top three -- but in early 2008, Ford claimed the third slot. Coca-Cola, which has an ongoing advertising association with American Idol, far outpaced all other brands' product placements on the program-beating second-place AT&T Wireless by more than 2,000 occurrences during both season 6 and the first quarter of 2008 (season 7). (See the chart below for more details.)

Top Product Placement Brands on American Idol

Full Season 6 vs. Partial Season 7

Jan. 16 - May Total # Jan. 15 - March Total #

23, 2007 Occurrences 31, 2008 Occurrences

Coca-Cola 2,916 Coca-Cola 2,337

AT&T Wireless 275 AT&T Wireless 282

Cingular Wireless 164 Ford Autos & Trucks 41

Source: Place*Views, Nielsen Product Placement Service (Jan. 16 - May 23, 2007 and Jan. 15 - Mar. 31, 2008)

During both seasons 6 and the portion of season 7 included in this analysis (Jan. 15 - March 31, 2008), product placements on American Idol appeared most often in foreground shots. In season 6, there were 3,030 foreground placements on the program; in the first three months of 2008, there were 2,154 foreground occurrences. In season 6, background placements (372 occurrences) and prop placements (234 occurrences) rounded out the top three, while in the first quarter of 2008, call to action placements (310 occurrences) and wardrobe placements (206 occurrences) claimed second and third place, respectively.

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), mobile measurement (Nielsen Mobile), trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit, http://www.nielsen.com.

SOURCE The Nielsen Company