American Idol pulled in a ridiculously huge audience again this week…that should surprise no one. The thing that should have everyone scratching their heads is what happened after Idol.

FOX’s new game show, Moment of Truth premiered, and it pulled in huge numbers. Like 23 million viewers huge. To put it in perspective, Idol averaged almost 27 million viewers, which means that Truth held onto 85% of the singing juggernaut’s audience share.

What’s more, Truth, Idol and Deal or No Deal brought in a combined viewership of 63.79 million viewers. The worst thing for me is that now the studios have something else to point to and say, “See, unscripted programming can pull in the ratings!” The last thing we need is for them to have yet another weapon to pull out in this fight.

(Source: TV by the Numbers)