American Idol (season 5) American Idol (season 5) The fifth season of reality television singing competition "American Idol" began on January 17, 2006, and concluded on May 24, 2006. Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell returned to judge, and Ryan Seacrest returned to host. It is the most successful season to date ratings-wise, and resulted in 18 contestants (including all of the top 10 and a few semifinalists) getting record deals – nine of them with major labels. It was the first season with a male winner (Taylor Hicks) and a female runner-up (Katharine McPhee). It was also the first season of the
American Idol (video game) of 100 for the PC version, and 41 out of 100 each for the PS2 and GBA versions. "X-Play" gave the game a 1 out of 5, complaining about the gameplay consisting of pressing buttons in time to judge the character's singing and not on the player's actual singing. In addition to the release of "Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol" for the PlayStation 2 on January 2, 2007, a sequel "Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore" was released during the 1st quarter of 2008 following its direct sequel "Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore 2" which was released on November