Final 11 – Pre-game

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The final 11 is the first round where men start to become vulnerable in the contest. Whereas women constitute 71% of Final 12 eliminated, in the Final 11 they constitute only 60%, so we can certainly have a man not only in the bottom 3 but actually kicked off. If I had to pick a man to worry about, it would most definitely be Paul McDonald:

Week Average Paul Margin
Final 12 46 28 -18
Final 13 51.7 42 -9.7

Not only did Paul under-perform the average, he was dead last among all men in WNTS rating.

Nevertheless, the odds still favor a lady leaving us on Thursday, and it’s not hard to figure out which one:

Week Average Naima Margin
Final 12 46 17 -29
Final 13 51.7 44 -7.7

Of the women who failed to make the Final 12 by vote, Naima is the only one remaining. It has happened quite frequently that a woman who was in the Bottom 3 in the first two final round made it through the third, but excepting in the case of Haley Scarnato and Camile Velasco, none has done so with a score quite as bad as Naima’s was. Naima needs probably at least a WNTS score of 30 to be safe.

The theme of the week, Motown, has historically probably not been advantageous to either men or women. Although women dominate the bottom 3 for Motown, it has only come up in the Final 10 and Final 12 episodes, when women tend to get the worst of it anyway.

I would, sight unseen, also assume Haley will be in the bottom 3, though I am significantly less sure of this than Naima.

The pimp spot effect: a definite advantage

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How many times has the Idol singing last in the finals ever been eliminated? The somewhat surprising answer is that it has happened only once (and a half). It has never happened before the top 7 in any given season.

First, the exceptions to the rule. Siobahn Magnus was eliminated in the Final 6 of American Idol season 9, with a way-out-of-her-comfort-zone rendition of Shania Twain’s “Any Man Of Mine”. It scored a 43 on WhatNotToSing, an Idol ratings aggregator, the third worst score of that episode; but as a woman she had a built-in disadvantage, and a terrible performance by Lee DeWyze was given a pass by the voting public. In this case, even going last could not save Siobahn from going home. Continue reading

Clear gender bias in American Idol voting

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If it seems like American Idol always turns into a sausage fest, it’s probably because it really does. If you’re a female singer, you have only slightly more than a 30% chance of reaching the top 2 under the current rules.

I compiled data from Wikipedia on the gender makeup of remaining finalists on all seasons excluding season 3 (more on that later). My feeling has been that women get hosed, but I didn’t really think it was this bad: Continue reading