'Idol' by the numbers

Nielsen recently released a report with its findings on the numerics of the American Idol franchise, in which different statistics were compiled to demonstrate just how gargantuan the series is. The report includes rankings of the show's top corporate sponsors, sales figures of various Idol alumni and web traffic to AmericanIdol.com. Below are a few excerpts from the report:

-Kelly Clarkson is the top selling former finalist with a combined album and digital sales total of 18.9 million, compared to Carrie Underwood's 15.7 million.

-The most-watched season on average was Season 5 (30 million viewers), while Season 7 is averaging 27 million.

-The most popular Idol contestants at the current time according to registered members of HeyNielsen.com are as follows: Carrie Underwood, Clay Aiken, David Archuleta, David Cook and Kelly Clarkson.

-The biggest month for AmericanIdol.com in terms of Web traffic was in March 2007, when the site was visited by 7,273,000 unique viewers.

-The top advertiser for Season 6 was AT&T, followed by Ford and Coca-Cola.

-The average fan voted via text message 38 times in April 2008.

To read more of the report's findings, see here.