In reply to Navy Sailor!!!.

Jennifer Hudson, Daughtry, Jordin Sparks, Jessica Sanchez, etc....only American Idol knows how to create a star

you can't look to ratings anymore....when American Idol started in 2001 ppl put in effort to be in front of that tv screen by 8pm....there was no other way to watch it....in 2013 you can watch it live on tv, you can watch streams online, youtube, hulu, dvr, etc....and there's no way to track these other outlets so no one knows how many ppl are actually watching....and despite "live watching" going down Idol is still the most watched show