Idol Chatter & Voice Views

We’re going to start this blog off a little differently.

I’m going to embed two clips. I want you to watch both, then answer a simple question.

Which makes for the best TV?

If you have a beating heart, the answer is obvious: American Idol. By way more than a country mile, even without Blake Shelton.

American Idol’s final moments of Season 16 felt like a grand celebration. I don’t care if you were rooting for her or not, how could you not be happy for Maddie Poppe?

And how magical was that moment? Overcome by emotion, she starts passing around the mic to her fellow contestants until even judge Katy Perry joins in.

The Voice? It’s season ran longer than Idol. Fans voted, fans streamed music, fans downloaded songs, fans sat through a two-hour season finale.

To see what?

Carson Daly names Brynn Cartelli the winner and we cut to the next NBC program. No victory song. No time to celebrate.

After all, there’s a fall season of The Voice just around the corner.

What worse for The Voice is that American Idol put on a better closing show for the entire night. Here’s why.

Leann Rimes with Kayla and Dyxie Spring. (ABC Photo)

Tuesday night was an odd mix. I immediately spotted Top 24 contestants Wilkes and Kelsea Johnson and thought, “Wow, they’re back to doing it right.” Nope, we wound up with an odd mix of singers that didn’t even include Top 8 finishers Kaleb Lee and Pryor Baird. I’d love to know if there’s a story behind that.

On Idol, the entire Top 14 were back to perform, and the show also incorporated other memorable contestants from Season 16.

How adorable was that duet between Kayla Springs and her very young sister Dyxie, especially once they were surprised when LeAnn Rimes showed up to sing with them? Kayla was Top 24.

2. The featured contestants: Shouldn’t the grand finale be a two-hour celebration of the finalists’ accomplishment. On The Voice, it used to be, with special duets and performances where a finalist would bring back several of their best friends for a group performance.

Unless I missed something, Season 14 champ Brynn performed just once Tuesday night. That would have been her performance of “Issues” and “Jump” with Julia Michaels.

On Idol? Maddie Poppe performed with Lionel Richie during a group number. She reprised her audition song alongside Kermit the Frog. She performed “Meant to Be” with Bebe Rexha and the other finalists. She sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with runner-up (and boyfriend) Caleb Lee Hutchinson. Then there was that show closing performance.

In my book, five performances beat one any day.

Caleb Lee Hutchinson and Darius Rucker perform on the American Idol fianle. (ABC Photo)

American Idol had Bebe Rexha, Nick Jonas, Patti LaBelle and Darius Rucker on hand. Their job: To perform alongside members of the Season 16 cast.

The judges took the stage too. Accompanied by contestants every time. How about that duet featuring Katy Perry and Catie Turner? Every performance on Idol included cast members.

The Voice featured some contestant-star duets too, including Jennifer Hudson with her background-singer-turned-contestant-that-never-should-have-been-allowed-to-happen Kyla Jade.

But on The Voice, Jason Aldean, Florence + the Machine, Dua Lipa, Halsey and Big Sean also were on hand to pimp new music. They performed without a member of The Voice cast in sight.

What did their performances have to do with The Voice? Or Season 14? Absolutely nothing.

4. The ratings: This is where the news gets really bad for The Voice.

On the night it aired its performance finale on NBC, ABC’s Idol finale was the highest rated show on TV with a 1.6 rating among viewers ages 18-49 and 8.65 million viewers.

On the night it aired its Season 14 finale on NBC, The Voice finished third in the ratings, behind Roseanne and NCIS with a 1.1 rating among the 18-49 set and 6.05 million viewers.

Whoa! The previous worst rating for a Voice finale was a 1.9 in Season 12. The previous low in viewership was 9.35 million. That’s a drop of more than 3 million viewers.

Try to put a good spin on that, NBC.

Bottom line: The American Idol finale left me eager for Season 17.

The Voice? It’s simply lost its way. And deserves the ratings it’s getting.