Clay Expected To Hold Runner-Up Record

Clay's record of 613,000 copies sold in the first week for an American Idol runner-up's debut album will stand, it looks. Season 4 runner up Bo Bice released his album, The Real Thing this past Tuesday and it is on track to sell about 180-200,000 copies in its opening week, less than 1/3 of what Clay moved in that same week. This report was posted onto the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's American Idol blog.

12/15: Early Bo sales report
By Rodney Ho Thursday, December 15, 2005, 01:52 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Bo Bice's first album "The Real Thing" looks to debut in the 180,000 to 200,000 sales range, based on first-day sales. Check out the story at www.hitsdailydouble.com. That is better than my pre-release prediction of 150,000 and far exceeds runner ups Justin Guarini and Diana DeGarmo but is not even a third of what Clay Aiken did. It would be the sixth biggest debut by an "Idol" contestant following the four winners and Clay.

As the above blog cited, HDD posted an article that mentioned (and even had a picture of Clay) too.

ONE-DAY SALES: THE BICE SQUAD HITS RETAIL
The Clay Aiken factor is once again in effect.
December 14, 2005

Looks like American Idol has launched yet another career, and, like Clay Aiken before him, long-haired rocker Bo Bice (RCA/RMG) seems to have gotten a lot of mileage out of the underdog status of being the runner up in the 2005 edition of the show. From the early data pouring in from retail, Bice may have enough fans to give Idol winner Carrie Underwood a run for her money, career-wise, as he boogaloos to a first-week total of 180k-200k on his debut album. Not only that, but our boy currently has the inside track to the #1 position next week. That said, he’s competing in a particularly crowded field of bona-fide hits as we hit the home stretch of the holiday gift-giving season.