TVSquad

Holy smokes. FOX is back on top now that American Idol is back on the air. More than 35 million people watched Tuesday's two-hour season premiere. That's the biggest season premiere yet for the talent show, and the competition hasn't even begun! That number is darn close to Idol's highest ratings ever, when 38 million people watched the final results show between Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard. No wonder the rest of the networks waited to hear FOX's Idol plans before scheduling their Winter/Spring programming.

While there may be a heck of a lot of American Idol fans in this country, there are even more football fans out there. American Idol's season premiere comes in as the #2 most-watched show during the 2005-2006 television season. Number one is the Rose Bowl college championship, which drew 35.6 million viewers earlier this month.

So I'm watching the game last night (quick segue, great great great game, and I'm so happy Texas won; I'm sick of USC, and freaking Vince Young was amazing), and since the Rose Bowl just happened to air on a channel where there are other shows, you just know they're going to get rammed down our throats ad nauseum. A litte after 11, right after USC had just kicked it off, a little bug came up on the screen for Emily's Reasons Why Not. Keith Jackson then muttered through the description of the show before mumbling "I don't care." He then did the same thing for Jake in Progress, pronouncing John Stamos' name Stah-mos instead of Stay-mos. Now I can come at this from both angles. On one hand, I agree with Jackson; I'm sick of seeing and hearing that crap during football, and does ABC really think that this is the audience they should be promoting these two romantic comedies to? Yea, I'm gonna watch Emily's Reasons Why Not, but I'm not in the majority here. On the other hand, it is their job to do so, and that was just unprofessional. Plus, who doesn't know how to pronounce Stamos? The man's been around forever -- perhaps you've heard of his ex-wife? The networks just need to stop forcing this cross-promotion into every aspect of every show; produce quality shows, the rest will take care of itself. Let me know what you think.