“Ominous Signs for ‘American Idol,’ ” was the headline over a Los Angeles Times story in mid-April that pretty much summed up the media elite’s impatience with TV’s biggest show. “Could it be that the singing smash, which has entirely reshaped television over the past seven seasons, is finally proving mortal?” the writer asked.
The only proper and polite response to this question, posed over and over this season by “Idol’s” critics, is as follows:
You. Wish.
A bad year? If the American economy were having “American Idol’s” year, radio stations wouldn’t be running cheap-gas promotions and Federal Reserve Chairman Abdul would be telling Congress how wonderful they all were.
Ominous signs? Hey, if the Royals were having “American Idol’s” year, people would be sitting on the dirt where the left-field bleachers used to be.
Ratings are down for “Idol”? So what? Twenty-four million people watched David Archuleta get a pass to the final round last week, and even more watched the night before as judge Simon Cowell correctly predicted Syesha Mercado would be voted off. And that was actually up slightly from the same week a year ago.
No, this was a great season for “Idol,” just like all the seasons before were great for “Idol.” And I’d be saying that even if Our Guy wasn’t the favorite to win it all.
If “Idol” were mortal, it would start getting beaten by “Dancing With the Stars.” Its grip on the 18- to 34-year-old demographic would loosen just a tad. It would get pre-empted in sweeps for a special Bill and Hillary Clinton edition of “The Moment of Truth.” None of that happened this season.
One early-warning sign would be if “Idol” started to lose its buzz. And yet, as catty, mean-spirited and conspiratorial as the chatter around “Idol” has been this season, there’s no indication that it’s dying down. A brief news-in-review of Season 7:
First, there was the early report that found one-quarter of this year’s semifinalists had some professional experience. There was further escalation at the Omaha auditions in the tiresome “feud” between Ryan Seacrest and Cowell (summary: “You’re insincere!” “Oh, yeah? You’re overpaid!”).
We learned about the Ellen DeGeneres stalker who’d sent her 71 videos of himself and the finalist who once moonlighted as a male stripper. Behind the scenes, there were stories about the show’s longtime director suddenly vanishing and the ban on David Archuleta’s dad.
On screen, Michael Johns and Carly Smithson were tossed off despite being more talented than Jason Castro, who all but begged viewers to send him home. And somehow we made it to the end of this litany of oddball news items without once uttering the word Paula. But she did her part.
All in all, 2008 was a bumper crop for “Idol” rumors and bizarre behavior that seemed almost calculated to drive the pop-culture world crazy.
To test my hunch, however, I did a few Nexis dives. USA Today has featured “Idol” as much this year (212 stories) as it did during the same period in 2007 (211 stories). Coverage in the major magazines has dropped (from 730 stories last year to 465 this year), but blog coverage is way up (2,324 posts indexed so far compared with 1,044 posts in 2007, though it’s possible Nexis wasn’t tracking as many blogs then).
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