Comments on: “American Idol” asks fans for a fix http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/2010/05/13/american-idol-asks-fans-for-a-fix/ Entertainment behind the scenes Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:28:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: melknowl http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/2010/05/13/american-idol-asks-fans-for-a-fix/comment-page-1/#comment-33363 melknowl Fri, 14 May 2010 00:51:48 +0000 http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/?p=9236#comment-33363 There's no getting around it, they cast badly this year. There's no one in this crop with the IT factor, or the ability to make you hurry into work the next day so you can dish about their performance over morning coffee with your cube mates. And then they made the problem worse by such schizophrenic judging that they scared the little charisma these contestants had right out of them. No one is taking any risks, they're all scared to, so there are no surprises. Even the performances from frontrunners like Crystal that are actually good are also completely predictable. I never thought I'd say this, because she used to drive me crazy sometimes, but I wonder if Paula wasn't the secret ingredient to making this show work. Both in fighting Simon to cast people she "felt" had "it" and in the wacko but certainly powerful encouragement she fed the contestants every week by having dance parties at the judges table, declaring them the next musical icon and even when faced with absolute trainwrecks, saying sweetly that they looked so pretty/handsome. The numbers are ugly. Not only are ratings taking a fairly steady dive (although looking at the ratings, they managed to stall the slide once, the week they Adam Lambert back) but viewer engagement has dropped off a cliff. This week's Top 4 got 37 million votes. Sound like a lot? Maybe, until you go back and look at Top 4 last season, which got 64 million votes. No wonder the producers have thrown together a viewer survey to try and figure out what went so horribly wrong. There’s no getting around it, they cast badly this year. There’s no one in this crop with the IT factor, or the ability to make you hurry into work the next day so you can dish about their performance over morning coffee with your cube mates. And then they made the problem worse by such schizophrenic judging that they scared the little charisma these contestants had right out of them. No one is taking any risks, they’re all scared to, so there are no surprises. Even the performances from frontrunners like Crystal that are actually good are also completely predictable.

I never thought I’d say this, because she used to drive me crazy sometimes, but I wonder if Paula wasn’t the secret ingredient to making this show work. Both in fighting Simon to cast people she “felt” had “it” and in the wacko but certainly powerful encouragement she fed the contestants every week by having dance parties at the judges table, declaring them the next musical icon and even when faced with absolute trainwrecks, saying sweetly that they looked so pretty/handsome.

The numbers are ugly. Not only are ratings taking a fairly steady dive (although looking at the ratings, they managed to stall the slide once, the week they Adam Lambert back) but viewer engagement has dropped off a cliff. This week’s Top 4 got 37 million votes. Sound like a lot? Maybe, until you go back and look at Top 4 last season, which got 64 million votes. No wonder the producers have thrown together a viewer survey to try and figure out what went so horribly wrong.

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