Katharine McPhee

Just weeks after Season 3 American Idol winner Rueben Studdard was dropped from J Records and days fellow champion Taylor Hicks announced that he had parted with Arista Records after releasing only one album, R&B/Pop singer Katharine McPhee has reportedly exited RCA Records in the wake of her lone set for the label. Makes you think…how long will American Idol have a mainstay. McPhee's departure from RCA follows last year's release of her self-titled debut, which entered The Billboard 200 chart at No. 2 and has since sold a total of about 366,000 copies in the US, according to Billboard. On a related note, "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell today told Entertainment Weekly that his take on Hicks' and McPhee's short-lived record deals--as well as that of "Idol" champ Ruben Studdard--was that it is "a reflection on the unpredictability of the record business. "Fortunately, we got it right more than we got it wrong," he continued, according to EW. "There's not scientific way to explain what happens. It's a reality show and what happens at the end is also reality."