By most new TV shows standards, 12.5M viewers is pretty damn good. But Simon Cowell himself is on record as saying he believed anything less than 20M is a failure, and, wow, was this less than 20M.
For comparisons sake, American Idol's 2011 season premiere drew 24M.
It didn't even win its time period.
Why?
Because it was more of the same -not worse of the same, but not better enough to make the slightest bit of difference.