Rate & Predict American Idol

I’m currently re-watching the 4 episodes of Hollywood week.  The main reason is to track how much air time each of the contestants have gotten before the Top 36 rounds, and see if the amount of exposure influences future voting.

I’m done with the first 3 Hollywood Week episodes, and am about 1/4 of the way through the final episode (i.e. the “Green Mile” episode).  Here are some things I noticed:

• Tatiana del Toro is probably the most annoying contestant in American Idol history.  However, I found it interesting that Rose Flack actually received more screen time than Tatiana during the group round episodes.
• Surprisingly, Anoop Desai hasn’t actually gotten much screen time.  During Hollywood week, he’s been shown for about 2 minutes, with over half of that time occurring during the Green Mile episode.  He didn’t even appear in the Group Round episode.
• Nick Mitchell/Normal Gentle has sung the Dreamgirls song 3 times (Audition, Hollywood day 1, Top 36 round 2).
• During the third Hollywood episode (the one where they put them into rooms), the Group 2 shown on camera consisted almost entirely of Top 36 contestants.
• Before the Green Mile episode, Ricky Braddy has been shown exactly once, for less than a second.  Given how great his voice is, do you think this affected his voting results last week?
• There are many strong male contestants, but seemingly very few strong female contestants.
• There are many instances where a contestant is shown on camera, but not mentioned in the voiceovers.  Casey Carlson, Anne Marie Boskovich, Michael Castro, and Joanna Pacitti all seemed to have been shown a lot in the background, but not mentioned.

Once I’m done with Hollywood week, I’ll take a look at how much screen time each of the next 12 Top 36 contestants have had to date.