'American Idol' Returns Sunday

American Idol” returns on Sunday for the premiere of its 17th season — and the start of its second season since it was rebooted on ABC last year. New polling shows that most people prefer the original run of the singing competition series, which initially aired on Fox, with a majority also saying they were a bigger fan of the show in the earlier seasons. 

A Morning Consult/The Hollywood Reporter survey found that 55 percent of U.S. adults said they preferred the original version of “American Idol,” compared to 9 percent that prefer the revival that began airing in 2018.

Thirty-seven percent of respondents also said they think the show, which first aired in 2002 and went off the air in 2016 until the reboot began airing in March 2018, has been on the air for too long. An additional 21 percent said it has been running for the right amount of time, and 17 percent said it hasn’t been on air too long.

In 2011, the Wednesday night “American Idol” broadcast averaged roughly 23.9 million viewers, securing its place as the No. 1 regularly scheduled prime-time TV program that year, according to Nielsen data. In 2012, it slipped to No. 2, averaging about 18 million viewers. By 2013, the Wednesday night “American Idol” had slipped to No. 7, bringing in an average of 13.4 million viewers each week.

The revived “American Idol,” which brought back host Ryan Seacrest alongside new judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan in 2018, saw an average audience projection — an average of the number of people over the age of 2 watching for a minute — of about 7.9 million people during the season.