Elliott Yamin goes home setting up next week’s finale between Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee.
Taylor Hicks, Elliott Yamin, and Katharine McPhee are the final three standing on American Idol. Who will be the final two? I’m posting early tonight and will be adding blogger’s embellishments later.
Before the show, eight pundits on my chart (below) were picking Elliott to go home, two were picking Katharine to go home, and two had not (yet) cast a vote (Reality TV Magazine and Simon Cowell). Note the addition of Google Trends to the chart.
The majority of the pundits got it right, as Elliott Yamin ended his American Idol run tonight. But (we’re told) it was closer than most predicted. With 50 million votes cast, the votes were distributed as follows:
- First Place = 33.68% = 16,840,000
- Second Place = 33.26% = 16,630,000
- Third Place = 33.68% + 16,530,000
The 2000 presidential election was just about as close, and only about 100 million people voted in that election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election%2C_2000). That’s right: half as many votes were cast yesterday for American Idol’s contestants than were cast in the 2000 presidential election.
Elliott, as expected, handled the news with class. Watching the show, you got the idea that everybody would have preferred to send Katharine packing. But only 100,000 votes separated second and third place, only 210,000 separated first and second place (and those positions were not revealed).
The computer pundits are doing quite well. I added Google Trends to the chart this week. Google Trends, Zabasearch, and DialIdol.com all got it right.
The human pundits – some are doing better than others. Simon again failed to make a prediction. I am officially dropping VFTW from the chart (after this post), as they have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, they they are incapable of making even remotely close predictions. VFTW was fun last year but they’ve been searching for a purpose this year, and failing to find it. But I will say that clicking through on this VFTW post leads to some very funny reading.
| Erik’s List of American Idol Pundits | ||
| Pundit | Bottom 2-3 Accuracy | Bottom One Accuracy |
| DialIdol.com | 87% (13 for 15) | 71% (5 for 7) |
| The Woes and the Prose of an American Idol Junkie | 87% (13 for 15) | 29% (2 for 7) |
| Erik J. Heels | 80% (12 for 15) | 43% (3 for 7) |
| Reality TV Magazine | 80% (12 for 15) | 43% (3 for 7) |
| Various and Sundry » American Idol | 73% (11 for 15) | 57% (4 for 7) |
| High Lord Dave’s Blog | 67% (10 for 15) | 57% (4 for 7) |
| USATODAY | 67% (10 for 15) | 57% (4 for 7) |
| American Idol Season 5 Blog | 60% (9 for 15) | 29% (2 for 7) |
| Flipping A Coin | 50% | 50% |
| Vote For The Worst | 40% (6 for 15) | 43% (3 for 7) |
| Simon Cowell | NA | 29% (2 for 7) |
| Zabasearch.com – Most Searched American Idol Contestants | no historical data | no historical data |
| Google Trends | no historical data | no historical data |
Next week: the finale at the Kodak Theatre. Then what will we do for fun? Fortunately, as Google Trends shows us, there is life after American Idol: the Red Sox are up when American Idol is down (http://www.google.com/trends?q=American+Idol%2C+Red+Sox).
