Idol Chatter & Voice Views

EW.com is reporting that ratings for Idol’s season 10 premiere dropped 13 percent from a year ago.

About 26.1 million viewers watched the show, compared to somewhere around 40 million in the show’s heyday.

And the percentage of viewers 18-49 who watched the show was the lowest for a premiere episode since season one.

Sounds horrible, right?

Ah, but these are numbers, and they can be spun so many ways.

Another site — nymag.com — notes that Idol drew more viewers than the other big three networks combined.

It still won its time slot, handily.

And, in an interesting comparison, Paula Abdul’s “Live to Dance” attracted about 5.3 million viewers over at CBS. That would be about 20 percent of what Idol drew.

Dizzyfeet — that would be Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe on Twitter — is certainly putting a positive spin on things.

About an hour and a half ago, he tweeted — correctly — that Idol’s season 10 premiere did better than last year’s season-ending shows.

About 45 percent better than the Tuesday night showdown between Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox and about 18 percent better than the star-studded grand finale, which attracted about 24 million viewers.

Time for Idol to panic?

Hardly.

With the good reviews the judges are getting — especially Steven Tyler (see my grades here) — I wouldn’t be surprised if more curious eyes check it out tonight.