The Question, Wednesday 5/21/14: Can American Idol Survive the Survivor Finale?

The end of another season has arrived, and the final Wednesday of 2013-14 brings a second straight finale duel that we've never seen before. American Idol and Survivor have regularly faced each other for the last four years, but because of Survivor's special Sunday finales, they've never actually had dueling finales until tonight. CBS may only be doing this because the Olympics pushed Survivor to a later start date than usual. But if it fares better than recent Sunday finales, CBS may think about making Wednesday finales the norm. Meanwhile, American Idol wraps up the season that officially made it Just Another Show, and it'll hope to garner more finale interest than the music show finales on Tuesday. Can American Idol survive the Survivor finale? That's The Question for Wednesday, May 21, 2014.

American Idol Recent Season Ends	Survivor Recent Season Ends
7.4 (We) -> 6.4 (Tu) -> 9.2 (We)  (2011) 4.9 (We) -> 4.4 (Tu) -> 6.4 (We)  (2012) 2.9 (We) -> 3.0 (We) -> 3.6 (Th) (2013) 2.1 (We) -> 1.7 (prelim Tu) -> (?) (2014)	2.7 -> 2.9 -> 3.2 (fall 2012) 2.4 -> 2.6 -> 2.7 (spring 2013) 2.6 -> 2.5 -> 2.6 (fall 2013) 2.4 -> 2.6 -> (?) (spring 2014)

Idol numbers are the last two performance weeks and the finale. In 2011 and 2012 (and again this year), the final performance show was a special Tuesday edition, while in 2013 it ended on the show's two regular nights. Survivor numbers are the last two Wednesday episodes and then the two-hour Sunday finale.

Though Survivor has been trouncing Idol in recent weeks, Idol produces much larger finale spikes historically. If Idol goes 20%+ above its last Wednesday performance show, which it usually has, and if Survivor has the same kind of blah week-to-week growth as recent Sunday finales, this could be very close. But I still give Survivor the edge. It might benefit a bit with a finale on its regular night, while the relatively small boosts for DWTS and The Voice on Tuesday (plus Idol's negative momentum in general) don't seem to bode well for a vintage huge Idol spike.

Spread: Survivor (8:00-10:00) beats American Idol by 0.25 points. (Reply with "Survivor" if you think Survivor beats Idol by 0.3 points or more. Reply with "American Idol" if you think Survivor beats Idol by 0.2 points or less OR if you think Idol beats/ties Survivor.)

No entries accepted after 6:00am ET the morning after the date in the headline. If editing your pick, please leave a separate comment. Result compares show finals, each individually rounded to one decimal point.