Everyone make way: Season 6 begins tonight
By Edna Gundersen and Bill Keveney, USA TODAY
Even the title seems too small to contain it anymore: American Idol isn't just a national pastime.
Since arriving with a bang in 2002, Idol has become an ever-expanding musical cosmos of stars, meteoric impact and stratospheric profits. Each season brings speculation about an inevitable implosion, but ratings climb steadily as Idol devours opposition and transforms the entertainment industry.
With no hint of sagging momentum, TV's Goliath returns as Season 6 launches with back-to-back audition episodes at 8 ET/PT tonight and Wednesday on Fox. Expect a few tweaks in the formula that turned a karaoke contest into a franchise worth about $2.5 billion, according to Advertising Age. About 36.3 million viewers saw May's finale, 2006's third-biggest TV event behind the Super Bowl and Oscars.
"It's like a nuclear bomb" on the schedule, says judge Simon Cowell, referring to how other networks shift programs to steer clear of Idol's gravity.
"There's no competition. People leave us alone."
A rare water-cooler phenomenon in today's splintered media galaxy, Idol has sustained white-hot popularity while spawning such copycats as the starless Nashville Star. Idol exploded beyond TV to ignite music sales: so far, 36.8 million Idol albums, singles, downloads and DVDs. And last season's voting generated 65 million cellphone text messages.
The brand is stamped on Barbies,sunglasses, microphone lollipops, lottery tickets, Drumstick Diva ice cream and, soon, Monopoly games and perhaps a singing camp. (A trademark application for Idol Academy has been filed.)
Idol's TV dominance can be measured in many ways. Last season, the Tuesday (31 million viewers) and Wednesday (30 million) shows were No. 1 and 2. The Tuesday show has been TV's most-watched for three seasons. Idol has powered Fox to consecutive season wins among advertiser-coveted young adults, despite the network's dismal fall performances.
NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly has dubbed Idol "The Death Star" — a Star Wars reference to its power to lay waste to prime time. To get out of Idol's way, ABC is moving two hits, Lost and Dancing With the Stars, and NBC is shifting an acclaimed but struggling show, Friday Night Lights.
Fox and the show's producers protect Idol from overexposure, broadcasting just one version a season. In the process, they have created an annual event Cowell calls "a musical Super Bowl." They've made only small changes in the show, such as revamping the semifinals into separate male and female competitions that have raised ratings for those episodes.
The biggest change this year is a competition to write the winner's song, which is the brainchild of Idol creator Simon Fuller.
The American dream
Different versions of Idol are produced in 32 countries, but the U.S. version is broadcast in 150. The Idol format itself is "bigger in America than it is anywhere else in the world," executive producer Ken Warwick says. "People in America hook into the Great American Dream. They do know it's genuine that this kid was a cocktail waitress, like Kelly Clarkson; that this kid was out of work, like Ruben (Studdard); that this kid was a single mom struggling to make ends meet, like Fantasia (Barrino)."
Last year, Idol's audience grew by nearly 15%, an unheard-of jump for a series in its fifth season. Host Ryan Seacrest says Idol's different platforms benefit one another; the show adds viewers and gets better singers because of the career success of earlier Idols.
"There's Kelly, obviously; we knew of her success. Carrie Underwood has become a superstar. Jennifer Hudson is getting all the Oscar buzz. Look at the unknowns who have come through little Camp Idol, if you will," Seacrest says. "You can see the show is not only entertaining, but that there's validity to it, as well."
Horizon Media analyst Brad Adgate expects Idol to be No. 1 again in viewers and young adults, but he sees it nearing a ratings plateau. Its dominance (topping last season's No. 3, CSI, by 5 million viewers) results from its ability to transcend TV, he says. "It's so woven into the pop culture of the country."
Idol, the first series to average more than 30 million viewers since Seinfeld ended in 1998, also has defied conventional wisdom about audience fragmentation in an age of expanding technology. The series scores with all ages and has revived a tradition: family viewing.
"It reminds us all of how big network television can be," says Preston Beckman, Fox's chief scheduler. "Creating something that can attract audiences of this size is still a possibility in spite of all the platforms and ways in which viewers can consume media."
After initially dismissing Idol as a laughingstock, the music industry is taking stock of the lucrative ritual, and nobody's laughing at the post-finale results. Individual Idols have sold 22.3 million albums and 11.5 million singles, including physical discs, downloads and ringtones, a remarkable feat considering the single was regarded as a dying format before Idol revived it.
Though viewers vastly outnumber record buyers, Idol defied doomsters by generating genuine stars. Clarkson has sold 8.3 million albums to date and was the second-most-played artist on radio last year, according to Nielsen BDS. Idol reject Hudson is the standout on the Dreamgirls soundtrack, this week's No. 1 album in Billboard.
In a stunning upset, Season 4 winner Underwood beat Faith Hill for female vocalist of the year at the Country Music Awards. Her debut album was the year's third-biggest seller and now totals 4.7 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Season 5 finalist Chris Daughtry's album sold 304,000 copies its first week, the highest opener for a rock debut since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. Eight of the 2006 finalists have record deals.
Viewers have spoken
That success springs not from the voice of the contestants but from the voice of the people, says Iain Pirie of 19 Entertainment U.S. "Initially, there were skeptics (and) a perception of creating cookie-cutter pop stars. We learned the show is an amazing gateway for the American public to voice what they like and don't like. If people on the show receive a huge amount of support for being themselves, they have to be given the platform to be themselves after the show.
"Carrie made a record that reflected her character and exactly what people loved about her," he says. "We've had consistent success with different styles. Fantasia is an expressive soul singer. Chris Daughtry is a bona fide rock star."
Pirie argues that the show's contribution to the business and pop culture has less to do with racking up Idol sales than cranking up musical interest. Casual fans who passively listened to radio suddenly fixated on vocal pitch, arrangements and song selections. "American Idol has turned people on to music. It's switched on people to feeling more passionate about music and moved music to the forefront of their minds whether they buy Idol records or they don't."
'A formula that works'
Contestant Corey Clark's alleged affair with judge Paula Abdul. Egregious product placement. Complaints about overloaded phone lines. From Justin to Kelly. Nothing has diminished Idol's intensity. Will Idol ever jump the shark or forever sail the high C's?
"It's hard to imagine something that would stop it," says Newsday pop music writer Glenn Gamboa. "They know how to find people the audience wants to root for. It's a formula that works. When you put it in voters' hands, they get invested and watch for the duration.
"Even the Grammys are trying to copy it (with a contest to pick a singing partner for Justin Timberlake), which is ridiculous."
The one scandal that could kill the golden-voiced goose? Rigged results. "If it was something that removed the power from the audience, the show would have real problems," Gamboa says.
Even if the show continues to run smoothly, off-screen matters could affect popularity, says Kennedy, host of Fox Reality Channel's Reality Remix. "If you have a few successive years where the winners don't do anything, people's interest will start to fade," she says.
Cecile Frot-Coutaz, an Idol executive producer with FremantleMedia North America, says Idol has a bright future if "it airs only once a year and we keep people satisfied."
Music consultant Tom Vickers envisions a long run for Idol as long as producers resist tinkering with the music-driven, talent-focused process. "You have a viable variety TV show at a time when people are hungering for mainstream musical entertainment. Top 40 is urban-based. MTV isn't showing many videos. This is an avenue where you can tune in and hear artists perform different genres of music in the space of an hour. It's captured the public's imagination."
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