NEW YORK (AP) — A recent time slot switch hasn’t paid dividends for Fox’s lurching “American Idol,” which reached a smaller audience last week than for all but one episode of its rookie season in the summer of 2002.

Thursday’s edition of “Idol” reached 8.4 million viewers, the Nielsen company said. Once television’s most dominant show, last week’s results program barely made it into Nielsen’s top 20 for the week. Wednesday’s show had 9.8 million viewers.