The top 20 album sellers from recent reality TV singing competitions all hail from American Idol. The following chart lists singers, the year they appeared on Idol and their career sales.
Artist (Year on American Idol) | downloads | album sales
Carrie Underwood (Winner, 2005) | 28,580,000 (additional 1,043,000 featuring Randy Travis) | 14,578,000
Kelly Clarkson (Winner, 2002) |30,158,000 | 13,369,000
(Chris) Daughtry (2006) | 13,720,000 | 7,062,000
Clay Aiken (2003) | 674,000 | 5,019,000
Fantasia (Winner, 2004) | 1,856,000 | 3,176,000
Ruben Studdard (Winner, 2003) | 438,000 | 2,584,000
Scotty McCreery (Winner, 2011) | 2,738,000 | 2,012,000
Kellie Pickler (2006) | 4,189,000 | 1,514,000
David Cook (Winner, 2008) | 4,571,000 | 1,478,000
Jennifer Hudson (2004) | 2,605,000 | 1,347,000
Jordin Sparks (Winner, 2007) | 7,005,000 (additional 3,580,000 with Chris Brown) | 1,297,000
Phillip Phillips (Winner, 2012) | 7,472,000 | 1,255,000
Adam Lambert (2009) | 5,235,000 | 1,242,000
David Archuleta (2008) | 3,497,000 | 1,156,000
Josh Gracin (2003) | 1,432,000 | 804,000
Taylor Hicks (Winner, 2006) | 387,000 | 768,000
Bo Bice (2005) | 555,000 | 757,000
Katharine McPhee (2006) | 1,612,000 | 475,000
Lauren Alaina (2011) | 998,000 | 424,000
Kris Allen (Winner 2009) | 3,317,000 | 393,000
Top-selling singing-competition artists ranked by career sales in single-track downloads and albums (physical and digital). Source: Nielsen SoundScan
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/t...story/4478095/