Facebook fans favor Bowersox

Christofer Machniak

Singer Crystal Bowersox is not only the odds-on favorite to win American Idol, she’s Number One in fans on Facebook.

Bowersox leads among the remaining seven contestants with 60,689 fans on her Facebook fan page as of about 6 p.m. Thursday. Casey James was second with 33,725 and Lee DeWyze was third with 30,736.

The numbers reflect official fan pages created for the contestants — a first time move for the TV’s top show, according to this post. In early March, producers announced they were going to consolidate the pages, but a review of the pages shows they still exist and the contestants or someone on their behalf are still posting status updates.

Top 24 qualifier Tyler Grady even posted he has regained control of his page on April 6.

“Hey, guys! I just got control of this American Idol fan page again. Hope everything is well with you all. Please check out my band Wailing Waters at http://www.facebook.com/wailingwaters ...Tell me what you think! :)”

But a large Facebook fan page doesn’t necessarily translate into phone votes. Andrew Garcia, who didn’t receive enough support to survive this week, ranks second in fans of the Top 24 with 45,047. Katie Stevens, who joined Garcia in leaving the show, is sixth with 23,156. Both have more fans than surviving rivals Siobhan Magnus (20,968), Tim Urban (17,056) and Michael Lynch (5,925).

The numbers also show that Adam Lambert (17,957), who didn’t make the Top 12, is more popular on Facebook than Urban and Lynch.

Multiple unofficial pages also exist and attract additional fans, but those weren’t calculated in this snapshot.

Here’s the breakdown:

Top 12
60,689 fans Crystal Bowersox
45,047 fans Andrew Garcia
33,725 fans Casey James
30,736 fans Lee DeWyze
28,191 fans Aaron Kelly
23,156 fans Katie Stevens
20,968 fans Siobhan Magnus
17,056 fans Tim Urban
16,060 fans Didi Benami
5,925 fans Michael Lynch
762 fans Lacey Brown
367 fans Paige Miles

The best of the rest
17,957 Adam Lambert
10,835 John Park
6,542 Tyler Grady
5,235 Lilly Scott
4,373 Jermaine Sellers
3,845 Katelyn Epperly
3,414 Ashley Rodriguez
2,459 Janell Wheeler
1,906 Michelle Delamor
1,678 Haeley Vaughn
352 Todrick Hall
128 Joe Munoz