With the news that Ellen DeGeneres is leaving American Idol close on the heels of Simon Cowell, the conversation surrounding the show is all about Read the full post.
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I suggest they get rid of all studio audiences, move the show into a recording studio. Then give them challenges each week- you must learn a song, but also design a cover sleeve for your new CD, or take photos for your celebrity blog, or do your own hair and makeup for an emergency photo shoot. Stars must be flexible and multi talented.
If next season they get consistently beat by DWTS, then I could see it being cancelled.
When is X Factor going to debut?????
Yeah, cancel Idol. The show WILL lose a lot more viewers this season for so many reasons: Simon being gone, the age limit dropped to 15.
Hey, Fox – quit beating a dead horse.
Yeah, plus Paula Abdul has a dance show coming out. The longtime AI fans will follow those 2. They’re not going to be diggin Steven Tyler or Jennifer Ho-Pez.
This show started out as a televised vehicle to find a singer who could sell records and tour tickets. Over time, the tail started wagging the dog and the show became more important than its stated goal. Why? Good business: the huge decline in cd sales due to music piracy which makes selling music less profitable every day means that the AI enterprise’s profits come from the SHOW, not from finding a singer who can sell records or tour tickets.
Therefore, AI became a casted piece of television designed to appeal to the audiences who will watch and vote (thereby pleasing their sponsors like Ford and AT&T).
The culmination of their television- business-approach to music was S9. They saw that the last two years’ winners were plaid-clad white guys with guitars and decided to give the VOTING audience what it wants and self-consciously cast a show of a bunch of white guys with guitars with a few ‘off-brand’ singers thrown in to please other demographics (“Bieber fans: Here’s a cute teen named Tim Urban with great hair! Lookeehere!”)
The result was the most lackluster season of AI yet, the tour is tanking, and I sincerely doubt anyone from that season are even going to sell as many albums or solo tour tickets as Kris Allen. But none of that matters, because people still watch the show.
Because the show is still #1 and it makes more money than cd and tour ticket sales, they are not going to seriously change a thing. As long as the ratings are high, they can still charge beaucoup bucks for commercial time and sponsorship. So why go to the trouble of fixing the problems (lackluster talent pool, intelligible/useless judging etc) when you can do the same old thing and bring in the bucks? There is no artistic integrity at stake here, just a desire to make money. And make money, AI does.
In the last recession(late 70s), the highest rated shows were All in the Family, Happy Days, and Laverne & Shirley. These shows have high syndication values later on. Sell them to other networks and make a bigger fortune.
The problem is nobody writes comedy anymore.
idol died roughly two years ago. people want comedy. or detectives. live concerts are totally out of fashion. in a recession with high unemployment people need a good laugh.
I like the idea of all new judges!! Check out Tim and Tom Butler, identical twins from Las Vegas, dancing at Tao Beach! Some videos are on our channel, other’s on You Tube! Type “Guy’s Dancing at Tao Beach” in the search box.
Viewers seem to also like my version of “She Bangs” let us know what you think!!
I saw the link in the corner “American Idol : Cancel It” and before I even hit it I knew it was going to be the obvious *yawn* cranky Ken Tucker take on the whole thing..if your talking about boring predictable and in need of being canceled..Ken Tucker’s column should be 1st on the list
Um, EXCUSE ME miss JC but Ken Tucker is the best gay columnist on EW or any other blog site, so step off biotch!
Remember when they tried American Idol with kids?
I just wanted to bring that up because it was so awful and unwatchable. If AI gets cancelled, another brand extension would crop up in its place.
First, this past season, they sent too many great singers home during Hollywood week. And, while I love Ellen, she was a distraction, and was out of her element. Last season, Adam Lambert was the only reason to watch. He was mesmerizing. Get rid of the themes, let them sing what they like, what they are good at. And lastly, ONE VOTE PER PHONE LINE!
The problem is that we all used to watch, and now only 12 year olds watch. And the premise is flawed. How many winners have actually become idols in real life? Two of them maybe? Possibly three? The idea that Americans watching a tv show will be able to decide based on Karaoke singing, who will be the next mainstream pop talent hasn’t really panned out. (think Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard, etc…) It should be canceled because early signs of public interest waning are coupled with the fact that America has not responded by buying the records of the winners.
For me they started to decline with the bait and switch game they played with the rules, letting some people stay who had criminal records or were sex workers and kicking others off the show. Secondly, the evolution of Ryan Seacrest from mildly annoying metrosexual host to an extremely aggressively irritating overly exposed host, the hiring of Kara who upset the balance of three,
Paula leaving and a woefully awkward Ellen (of all people, what were they thinking???!!!) replacing her, picking contestants
who were cute but couldn’t sing that well and getting rid of more talented contestants – Why???, and finally Simon’s lackluster judging because mentally he already checked out before he left.
Can they save this show? Judging from most of the comments, people have the same negative reaction to JLo as they do Kara. I was sad to hear that a hard rock legend that I respected, Steven Tyler, would stoop to this. I don’t think he should associate himself with AI, which has become the definition of selling out. He must really need the money.