'Idol' viewers fewer, older

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NEW YORK (AP) - The fevered response to the latest loopy Paula Abdul episode, in which she judged a phantom performance, just goes to show how "American Idol" continues to dominate television in its seventh season.

Nevertheless, though "Idol" is still a hit, it's no longer necessarily hip.

You can hear it in the lack of enthusiasm in 14-year-old Katharine Bohrs' voice.

"Last year I was really into it, and the year before that," says the high school freshman from Brookline, Mass. "This year in the beginning I was, but then track started up, and I have a lot of homework. It's two hours long, and I don't have the time."

She says she used to watch regularly with a friend. Now her friend records it and watches only occasionally, Katharine says.

Statistics back up the anecdote. Audience declines for "American Idol" are steepest among youthful viewers, the people who set the pop-culture agenda and are most likely to buy music made by the show's winners. These are not the people a show wants to turn off.

Make no mistake, "American Idol" is still the biggest thing on television. It is the reason Fox will end the TV season later this month as the nation's most-watched network for the first time in history.

The show is averaging 28.7 million viewers this year, according to Nielsen Media Research. That's down 7 percent from the nearly 31 million viewers who watched last year. It's also typical — maybe better than typical: In this writers-strike-marred season, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" has shed 19 percent of its viewers, "Grey's Anatomy" is down 20 percent and "Survivor" is off 9 percent from last spring's edition.

"We're not in denial that the ratings are down," says Preston Beckman, Fox's chief scheduling executive. "There are things that we can control, and there are things that we can't control. I defy anyone to show you a hit show that has been on for seven seasons that is at the level this one is on relative to where it started."

Among women aged 18 to 34, the "American Idol" audience has slipped 18 percent this year. Isolate teenagers 12 to 17, and the drop is 12 percent.