After being declared the champ by American Idol judges on Tuesday night, 17-year-old David Archuleta saw voting viewers take the title away from him on Wednesday and award it to 25-year-old David Cook. The show's judges on Tuesday were joined by several talk-show hosts, entertainment magazine commentators, and newspaper columnists in forecasting a win for the teenager. When host Ryan Seacrest announced on the show Wednesday night that the final vote was not even close -- 56 percent to 44 percent -- much of the audience appeared to believe that Archuleta was the big winner. Then, just before the announcement, judge Simon Cowell, who had praised Archuleta the previous night by saying that he had "won by a knockout," told Cook that he was sorry that his words verged on the "disrespectful" to him. Cowell said that when he watched the show at home, "it wasn't quite so clear cut as we called it." Seacrest said that a record 97.5 million votes had been cast by viewers, with Cook winning by a margin of 12 million.