American Idol Boots Michael Johns as Ratings Drop

No one saw it coming.

American Idol sent fan favorite Michael Johns packing this week, after his poorly received rendition of Aerosmith's "Dream On" garnered the least amount of viewers' votes. Johns, a native Australian, was one of the more popular contestants this year; making his early ouster more shocking.

Also of note, Idol's second annual Idol Gives Back charity show failed to retain the ratings success it achieved last year. This is especially bad news for FOX, since Gives Back expanded to two and a half hours this year, and had considerably more star power (Brad Pitt, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, and Mariah Carey to name a few) than last year's higher rated show. In fact, Wednesday night's Idol Gives Back show was the lowest rated episode of American Idol since a 2005 "Worst Auditions" clip special. Ouch.