Whoa! Scotty wasn’t the only big winner last night. American Idol 2011 picked itself up off the ground after its Tuesday night finale performance show ratings decline and went on to shine. For the first time in FIVE years the Idol finale outdid its previous year and it did it in a big, big way!

Fox dominated the final night of the 2010-11 broadcast season with the two hour seaon finale of American Idol which scored a 9.2 adults 18-49 rating and 29.3 million viewers.

That was up 12% for adults 18-49 and 21% for viewership compared to last year’s finale 8.2 adults 18-49 rating and 24.223 million average viewers.

When the show ran over, despite Ryan Seacrest’s best intentions, 38.6 million viewers stayed tuned in to find out who had earned the most votes. That’s incredible! Hopefully that’s finally enough to keep everyone satisfied that American Idol 2012 will definitely be another big event.

Do you think last night’s show earned it’s ratings increase over last year? I know I enjoyed it and can’t wait for the season’s return.

Source: TV By the Numbers

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The American Idol 2011 winner is about to be crowned and we’ll be providing live results of tonight’s show. Settle in for an impressive show if the guest performance rumors are true. Will Scotty or Lauren be the next Idol?

See what other Idol fans are saying right now on our Idol Facebook page and then join us in the Idol Net Chat room while we review tonight’s live show.

Don’t forget to download Scotty’s and Lauren’s American Idol compilation albums featuring their performances from last night’s show.

American Idol 2011 Finale Results:

• The winner of American Idol is Scotty McCreery

Share your thoughts on tonight’s performance on our Facebook page and see what other fans are saying about the American Idol finale results.

Reminder that So You Think You Can Dance 2011 premieres tomorrow night (5/26) at 8PM so be sure to join all of us over at SYTYCD.net where we’ll keep the party going all summer.

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Update: USA Today says 122 million votes last night. 6+ avg. votes per viewer.

We’re just hours away from finding out who won American Idol 2011. While we wait lets take a run through the winner predictions and see where we all stand.

Last night the judges called it for Lauren after giving her seven of the nine “Round votes.” Randy and JLo each gave Scotty one Round vote while Steven Tyler put all of his support behind Lauren.

Branden noted that while he preferred Scotty it was looking like all the show’s manipulation to push voters to Lauren would probably work. That’s another vote for Lauren Alaina to win this season of Idol.

All season long your votes in our polls have kept Scotty well ahead of Lauren. Sure, our unofficial polls were wrong with James, Pia, and Haley’s eliminations despite out-ranking Lauren but I’ve got faith in you all. This week’s results, see below, show nearly a 2:1 lead for Scotty McCreery.

Don’t forget Dial Idol which took a hit this year with the introduction of online voting via Facebook, but based on their testing methods they’re calling it for Scotty by roughly a 3:2 margin.

I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by productions pushing and shoving of Lauren!-Lauren!-Lauren! down our throats, but I’m standing strong against it. With three straight years of a guy winning this competition I’m not convinced Lauren can overcome the odds. My prediction goes to Scotty McCreery for the win.

We’ll know soon enough, but in the meantime be sure to vote in our poll and share your thoughts on who will win and why.

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Tonight is the very last episode of the American Idol 2011 season and in an effort to make up for last night’s snoozefest we should be getting one heck of a finale show in true Idol fashion, but without last season’s winner…

While FOX has been fairly tight-lipped about who will be on the show (because we all know interest and anticipation are the last thing you want for your big show, right??) there have been lots of leaks and tips. Considering last night’s 7% drop in ratings over last year’s finale show (the very same “last year” that produced the worst sales ever with its winner…) they should be doing everything they can to promote the show.

Here’s what we know so far for finale show performances, allegedly of course as FOX won’t confirm bookings:

Carrie Underwood returns to sing alongside Lauren Alaina while Scotty will duet with Tim McGraw. Lady Gaga will perform “Edge of Glory.” Bono and The Edge will be doing some of their songs from the Spider-Man Broadway show.

Pia Toscano will have a duet with Charice while, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if true, Jack Black teams up with Casey Abrams. Haley Reinhart’s parents let slip a rumor that she may end up doing a performance on tonight’s finale to debut her first single, but others report it’ll be a duet with Tony Bennett. Even James Durbin gets a power performance. He’ll join forces with Judas Priest. No word on that Steven Tyler and James Durbin duet discussed earlier in the season.

The Top 13′s girls will team up with Beyonce while the Top 13′s guys will join forces with Tom Jones… Wait, what? Sure, Jones is worthy of the finale but no one semi-modern was available? Anyway…

Then there’s the judges table who will offer up a rendition of “Dream On” by Steven Tyler minus Aerosmith and JLo may have a duet with her husband Skeletor Marc Anthony.

Oh, I can confirm who will not be performing tonight. Lee DeWyze was most definitely not invited to perform on this season’s finale show. DeWyze confirmed the news while his album sales predicted it.

So yeah, lots going on with tonight’s show. Hopefully most of those are true and there’s even more we don’t know about just yet.

Which guest performer are you most excited to see on tonight’s American Idol finale?

Source: THR

Original content from American Idol 2011.

Since there’s no way to make any logical song predictions for the Top 2, I’ve decided to assemble “American Idol” Season 10′s Top Ten moments. I’m doing this ahead of the finale, because once that happens, that’s all anyone will care to talk about. Some of the Top Ten list will consist of good performances, others will be exciting and shocking moments.

10. Stefano Langone performs “Hello.” Despite the judge’s claiming Stefano lacked emotion, I picked up on a lot of emotion. This performance was the first of the season to give me goosebumps, so it surely deserves a spot on this list.

9. Paul  McDonald performs “Maggie Mae.” Paul’s performance of “Maggie Mae” during the Top 12 Guys performance show surely landed him into the Top 13. It also left him constantly compared to Rod Stewart. Unfortunately, while very entertaining, Paul’s vocals never quite matched that early performance.

8. Casey Abrams is eliminated and saved. Casey got the judge’s save very early in the same. Some even said too early. At any rate, he didn’t deserve to go home in 11th place, so the judges made a good decision. Casey’s reaction to being saved alone earns it a spot on this list.

7. Lauren Alaina performs “Candle in the Wind.” This was the first time Lauren showed some maturity, so it was a big moment for her. It showed America that even though she’s only 16 (and often acts even younger), she is in this game to win and she’s quite capable.

6. James Durbin performs “Uprising.” Who will ever forget James’ Top 7 performance fully quipped with a marching band? From my earlier review, I said “What the what? That performance was insane. Insanely good. That’s not even my kind of music but I loved it.”

5.  Scotty McCreery sings “Gone.” I’m not a country music fan and I don’t even know who Montgomery Gentry is, but Scotty’s take on their hit “Gone” was his best of the season (so far … who knows what he does in the finale). Scotty really opened my ears to country. His spot in the Top 2 is deserved.

4. Pia Toscano performs “I’ll Stand By You.” It only took until the Top 12 girls performance show for Pia to emerge as a stand out. Her performance of this Pretenders ballad was so intense and amazing, that it got a standing ovation. Even though she was a standout, she wasn’t a front runner, which brings us to No. 3.

3. Pia is eliminated. What a ridiculous shock. A lot of people expected Pia to go all the way, not go home in 9th place. It’s still a mystery to some, including us here at AIN. After she was eliminated, the site was flooded with emails (from people thinking we’re an American Idol affiliate), demanding Pia be reinstated. Crazy stuff.

2. James Durbin performs “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” James spent most of the season being the resident rocker. His goal was actually to bring metal back. But when he showed his super softer side for the first time during the Top 6 performance show, I was completely wowed. I love the song anyway, but his version of it blew me away. It was definitely one of his best moments and was the moment I became a fan.

1. Haley Reinhart performs “House of the Rising Sun” and claws her way from the bottom to the Top 3. This is kind of a Haley retrospect as a whole. The fun for Haley really  started around Top 6 when she stopped landing in the bottom, then exploded with “House of the Rising Sun” during the Top 5 show. That was Haley at her best. She followed that with some other greats, like “I (Who Have Nothing)” and a spot in the Top 3. She outlived Pia, Casey and James. That’s quite the fete and No. 1 worthy if you ask me (and I wasn’t even a Haley fan until around Top 5).

So that’s my list. What’s yours?

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