Sunday, February 20, 2011

The New American Idol

Let me state right at the top that I'm a fan of American Idol. I enjoy watching the auditions -- they remind me of some of the auditions I had to sit through while I was a theatre director. I love Hollywood Week -- the pressure to perform is so intense it raises the stakes to amazing heights. The competition shows are almost a relief by comparison, but it's always fascinating to watch the personalities emerge and watch the performers grow. And who cares if the Idol winner has a great career afterwards or not? It still makes great television.

Why didn't Fox just let it go after last year's lackluster performance (by Idol standards)? Simple. The show remains a formidable force on broadcast. Even if it's only the number two show on broadcast, it's tremendously profitable for Fox. It's a great platform to promote their other shows. Trust me, when you're head of programming for a major network, you will do whatever you can to save your #1 show. What surprised me is how well the show's producers managed it.

This year on American Idol is mainly an exercise in making the show seem different while actually changing as little as possible. Yes, we have two new celebrity judges, but that just restores the total number to the original three. Jennifer Lopez has many of the same qualities as Paula Abdul, without the craziness. Randy has moved to Simon's old seat, but it appears that both he and Steven Tyler are trying to bring a little of Simon to the show. They've moved the first show to Wednesday from Tuesday.

And it's working. Last week both American Idol shows were the #1 and #2 highest rated regular programs (the Grammy Awards was the highest rated). Steven, Randy and JLo are making me forget Simon Cowell -- at least the Simon of last season who was clearly bored by the proceedings. They have managed to re-invigorate the show without re-inventing the format. If you think that's easy, then you have never produced television.

If you want to produce television, you should study why American Idol is such a success. The lessons we can learn from it can help us no matter what type of show we're producing. Watch the show for a couple of weeks and I'll write about those lessons in a later post.