Rate & Predict American Idol

From highest to lowest, here was the amount of screen time allocated to each of the contestants up to the last Hollywood Week episode, for contestants in Group 2:

1. Nick Mitchell – 10:57
2. Matt Breitzke – 8:50
3. Adam Lambert – 8:37
4. Kai Kalama – 5:22
5. Matt Giraud – 5:00
6. Megan Joy Corkrey – 3:39
7. Jasmine Murray – 2:49
8. Jesse Langseth – 2:37
9. Allison Iraheta – 2:09
10. Kris Allen – 1:50
11. Mishavonna Henson – 1:07
12. Jeanine Vailes – 0:20

Given that 2 of this group’s winners ranked #9 and #10 in screen time, it seems clear that previous screen time wasn’t a huge factor for this round.  However, screen time probably wasn’t a big factor because of the composition of the contestants in this group.

On the boys side, Adam Lambert had, essentially, no competition.  His closest competitor in hindsight was Matt Giraud and Kris Allen, the former of which sounded awful singing a Coldplay song, and the latter of which was barely seen at all in the audition rounds.  In fact, much of Kris Allen’s screen time came during the group round, of which he was a part of “White Chocolate” with India Morrison.  When he had been on air, the story wasn’t even about him!  Adam’s clearly superior talent level was the most important factor this round, not screen time.

On the girls side, notice how NONE of the girls cracked the top 5 in screen time (Kris Allen was the only male that didn’t make the top half of screen time).  This was a very under-exposed group of singers.  In a weird way, because none of the girls had much screen time, they were all playing on level ground.  The only person who really got shafted was Jeanine, who had never been shown singing (and probably for good reason).

So all in all, screen time wasn’t a huge factor for Group 2.  Personally, I like it this way.  When you don’t have expectations for a performance, you get really pleasant surprises from talents like Allison Iraheta and Kris Allen.  I found their performances just as, if not more, entertaining as Adam Lambert’s, whose talent is great, but kind of expected based on his previous exposure.