Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Trudging towards the American ‘idle’

The Times called him “heartless, thoughtless and superficial,” yet Simon Cowell’s angry villainous chair was the glue that kept American Idol alive for many years. With Simon making clear his plans to leave, is Fox tactically forcing him to return back? by Pallavi Srivastava

“I met someone the other night who’s 28 years old, and he hasn’t worked a day since he left college because he’s pursuing a dream he’ll never, ever realize: He thinks he’s a great singer. Actually, he’s crap!” To say Simon Cowell’s supremely bloodying verbal assaults on participants on live national TV made American Idol a quasi-iconic series, is perhaps being too modest. In truth – as all truisms are supposed to be – the caustic and sarcastically sadistic Cowell had built up such a cult following that post his recent media comment marking his intentions to leave American Idol in May 2010 (Post leaving Idol, Cowell is expected to work more on the UK blockbuster series, The X Factor, which he produces, and judges too), America’s leading television network, Fox Television (owned by Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch’s company News Corp), which hosts the Idol series, is facing the real danger of seeing its rating points plummet, apart from revenues – after all, American Idol has been the biggest cash cow for Fox Television Network over the past few years.

Fox is clearly worried. Last year, when another judge Paula Abdul left the show, nobody even blinked an eye. Compare that to the frenzy now. When we contact Fox, they send a prepared statement of their Chairman Peter Rice to B&E, “Simon is irreplaceable... It’s going to be incumbent upon us to make sure that the show remains vital and entertaining and compelling, as it’s a show that has launched superstars.”

But can one man really be so important for the future potential of Fox Television? Sample this: As per Nielsen Ratings, American Idol occupies eight of the top 10 spots in the decade’s most-watched TV shows list (period 2000-2009). Season 5 of the show which aired in 2006, holds the number one position with an average of 31 million viewers (tuning-in on Tuesdays, for the performance show), while the number two spot is occupied by the same season of the Idol with 30 million viewers for the ‘result episodes’ that were aired on Wednesdays. And in all these seasons, Cowell was omni-leading-present. Had it not been for CBS’s adventure series Survivor, American Idol would have made a clean sweep of the top ten slots. For CBS, Survivor Season 2 (29.8 million viewers) and Season 6 (28.3 million viewers) were the face savers. Even amongst the top 15 shows of the decade, the Fox programme captured 11 slots of 15. Apart from the two Survivor series, the only other show that made it to the top 15 shows of the decade, was CBS’s crime drama CSI Season 5 & Season 6 (26.3 million & 26.2 million viewers respectively).


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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