TV Ratings: ‘American Idol’ Finale Hits 7-Week High Note Ahead of Taylor Swift’s ‘City of Lover Concert’

Last night’s first ever virtual “American Idol” finale hit a seven-week viewership high note for ABC.

The singing competitions series’ season 18 curtain call scored a 1.0 rating among adults 18-49, ticking up from last week, and 7.3 million total viewers. While that’s down over 1 million viewers from last season’s finale, it’s still roughly even with the season 16 ending, and represents a decent recovery following the show’s slip to lows of 5.5 million viewers a few weeks ago. “Idol” was preceded by an “America’s Funniest Home Videos” episode with a 0.7 and 4.6 million viewers, and followed by the Disney-owned network’s special airing of the Taylor Swift “City of Lover Concert” with a 0.5 and 3.6 million viewers.

On a night with plenty of finales, some of the others failed to take off, like for instance the “Batwoman” season 1 closer, which came in even at a 0.2 rating and 752,000 total viewers, down on the season average of 1 million pairs of eyeballs. “The Supergirl” finale came after with a 0.2 (up fractionally from last week) and 627,000 total viewers.

Fox’s Animation Domination Sunday lineup all had their finales last night, with “The Simpsons,” “Bob’s Burgers” and “Duncanville” all ticking up to a 0.6, a 0.5 and a 0.4 respectively. “Simpsons” drew the largest audience on the night with 1.9 million, followed by “Family Guy” (which came in even ratings-wise at a 0.5) with 1.5 million, then “Bob’s” with 1.3 million and “Duncanville” with 1.2 million. The network kicked off the night by airing the 2020 Nascar Cup Series, which scored a 1.1 rating and 5.8 million viewers.

CBS continued its run of classic movies on Sunday night with “Mission Impossible” scoring a 0.4 rating and 3.9 million viewers. “60 Minutes” topped the night with a 0.7 and just under 10 million viewers, while a “Man With a Plan” replay delivered a 0.3 and 1.9 million.

Finally on NBC, “Little Big Shots” came in even at a 0.3 and 2.1 million viewers, followed by the “Beverly Hills Dog Show” special and “The Wall” which both scored the same rating and around 2 million viewers each.