American Idol 7 Season Premiere - Overnight Nielsen Ratings - Officially Peaked

The season premiere of American Idol 7 took in 33.24 million viewers, but it is down 4.2 million viewers from last season, down about 2 million from 2 years before and about 200,000 viewers short from season 4.

American Idol Dominates, but Declines Year-to-Year (Mediaweek) via MJ

As expected, it was a huge overnight victory for Fox on this third Tuesday of 2008, with the seventh season-premiere of American Idol at an 18.6 rating/27 share from 8-10 p.m. Comparably, that outdelivered the second highest rated show of the evening, CBS’ NCIS (10.2/15), by a hefty 82 percent. But year-to-year, American Idol actually dipped by 15 percent from its sixth season-opener on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2007 (21.8/31). So, at this point it is safe to say that American Idol has officially peaked.

If this season's viewers are on par with season 4, I would still be happy. We'll see what happens when we reach the Top 12.