Fiercest Competition This Season May Be Among Singing Competitions

By BILL CARTER

Wednesday night brought further evidence that network television may be saturated with singing competitions, even as news reports circulated about which celebrated recording artists the Fox network would be adding as judges to revive the flagging flagship of singing shows, “American Idol.”

Fox's alternate singing entry, “The X-Factor,” opened its second season Wednesday with a performance that would be considered acceptable in a vacuum - a 3.4 rating in the advertiser-preferred 18-49 audience group and 8.7 million total viewers (according to fast national ratings which Fox ordered special from Nielsen) â€" but which fell short in comparison to the 4.2 rating, 12.5 million viewers its premiere attracted last fall. The show also trailed in the head-to-head competition in the 8 p.m. hour with NBC's vocal-contest entry, “The Voice.”

“American Idol,” which won't return until January, was nevertheless in the ne ws because of accounts that the singers Nicky Minaj and Keith Urban will join Mariah Carey and the holdover Randy Jackson on the next edition of “Idol.” Still, Fox has not yet said anything official about the final determination of the “Idol” judging panel.

Meanwhile, the network has had to concentrate on how best to position the results for “X-Factor,” which was hoping that its own new, high-profile judge, Britney Spears, would pump new life into a show whose audience last season fell considerably short of the 20 million predicted by its creator, Simon Cowell.

The chief explanation for the decline in numbers for “X-Factor” this season was the competition from “The Voice,” which Fox executives have gone to great lengths to disparage as a lesser imitation of the real thing. (They even introduced a funny parody dating show, called “The Choice,” this summer.)

That “The Voice” probably damaged the premie re performance for “X-Factor” seemed clear Wednesday, because the two shows went head to head for an hour at 8 p.m. “The Voice” won that exchange, scoring a 3.3 rating in the 18-49 audience for that hour, with 10.7 million viewers, to a 2.9 rating and 7.5 million viewers for “X-Factor.”

Interestingly, NBC listed this edition of “The Voice” as a special, which means its lower-than-usual rating on Wednesday will not count in the average for the show.

Even so, “X-Factor” last fall faced what seemed like tougher competition because it went against network premieres on all networks, including the first new episode of television's biggest comedy, “Modern Family.”

But two singing competitions at the same time may have been too much for fans of the genre. Fox is hoping for growth based on positive reaction on social media to Ms. Spears and a revamped format.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.