There’s never been a worse time for reality TV flagship shows than right now. Ask the producers of American Idol, X Factor and Big Brother. Talent is seemingly thin on the ground, the formats themselves seem strained and audiences are in decline.
The American entertainment websites will tell you that American Idol is onto a surefire winner this year - they’ve basically got a captive audience due to the Hollywood writer’s strike. But that’s no reason to become complacent, and the Idol production team know it.
Season six of American Idol featured some of the weakest talent the competition has known to date. Backed up by the fact that neither the winner - Jordin Sparks - or the runner-up Blake Lewis managed to score a number one with their respective debut singles.
Is it a coincidence that the two top talent shows of 2007 were a complete washout? I already passed my judgement on 2007’s X Factor, but Lisa and I really expected so much more from American Idol. After all, surely larger population = larger chance of talented individuals getting through? Apparently not.
Short-lived Careers?
You’re going to hear a lot about how many Idol alumni have been dropped from their record labels due to poor sales. But you’ll also hear a lot about how artists like Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Jennifer Hudson and America Fererra have gone on to stellar careers in music, film and television.
The problem is the public. When you allow the public to vote, you run the risk of true talent being dropped from the show in favour of ‘personalities’ who have minimal musical ability. Like Sanjaya. Or Chico. Nigel Lythgoe recently said “Just because a granny in Omaha falls in love with Taylor Hicks, it doesn’t mean she will go out and buy his record, even though she will pick up the phone and vote for him.”
The problem is the selection process. Perhaps to have some consistency with the ‘freakshow’ auditions, the producers feel some responsibility to put a couple of halfwits through to the live rounds. They do so at the expense of talent. If the producers and judges made certain to select talented and charismatic individuals, then it would be a dogfight among the best emerging artists in the industry.
Last year’s competition was amateur hour compared with what we should be seeing on a nationwide talent show like American Idol.
Improving American Idol
As I said earlier, the producers cannot afford to be complacent with American Idol this year. There’s always a risk that the viewing audience will abandon TV completely and go out and get lives or something. Idolator has a good round-up of how the programme’s makers are planning to spice things up in Season Seven.
- New set and new opening sequence: I was wondering when they were going to refresh the brand. After six seasons, it’s long overdue!
- Allowing contestants to play instruments: possibly the most significant development and one that I hope brings a better class of auditionee.
- Reality TV rejects in the Hollywood Round: not sure what this means, but it sounds dodgy…
- More backstories: I like the idea of this, as long as they can stay away from X Factor style sob stories.
- “Where Are They Now” for former contestants: A good idea, but with a declining base of ’stars’ to choose from. How many burger flippers can we see?
- Less celebrity mentors: Praise Jebus! The celebrity cash-in - exclusive mentoring in exchange for a plug of your latest single or album is a thing of the past. No longer will these hungry wannabes have to lick the boots of megastars and pretend to respect their ‘art’.
- Three farewell songs instead of one: Er, who cares?
- Fox promises not to saturate the network with American Idol programming: A bit of savvy brand management here. Just because there’s going to be nothing good on US TV for a while doesn’t mean you should overplay your hand.
Despite the hype, I’ll be remaining mildly cynical. The X Factor producers promised last year that there’d be less schmaltz and less editorial agenda. However, they delivered a series that depended far too heavily on sob stories from a group of contestants who I could beat with my in-shower singing voice.
As with all reality television, the success - in my opinion - depends on the contestants. And all I want is for them to be talented and charismatic. I want to have finalists so good that I find it difficult to choose between them. Not so bad that I don’t care who wins.
Do you think you can handle that, American Idol producers? Then let the season begin.
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