Reality TV? I’ll stick with my own reality, thank you.
January 25, 2007 – 9:00 amI was reading my daily bquotes newsletter from bguides.com, and the trend mentioned today was the continued success of American Idol.
I’m not going to get in to any jabs at the stars or the hosts, because there is an endless supply of that on and offline, but I saw an article how big of an impact the show has had on text messaging because of the ability to vote online for your favorite “star”.
Check out Textually.Org for the full article and a link to an upcoming MSNBC story on the show.
Most scary stat: … “Idol” has introduced millions of Americans to text messaging and, in doing so, created a new revenue model. Last year, 64 million votes were cast for favored contestants using Cingular cell phones, more votes than have been cast for any U.S. president “.
The cost to advertise on the show is out of control, but I guess the cost can be justified by the number of viewers.
Sure, I admit I watched a couple of episodes in the first season few seasons, just like I did when Survivor first came out, but quickly got bored and moved on to other shows. I only watch a few hours of TV a week, and I wasn’t going to waste my time with that junk. If you want to see some bad singing, just stop by your local drinking establishment on karaoke night and I’m sure you’ll have more than your fair share of bad singing and embarrassing performances.
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01/25/2007
btrend:
Last week’s premiere of “American Idol” was the most-watched in its six-season history (and the best television debut ever for the Fox network), with an estimated 37.3 million viewers, according to MSNBC. That’s an increase of 5% over season five’s premiere, with 35.5 million viewers (and 376% more than season one’s premiere with 9.9 million viewers).
This season, a 30-second commercial during “American Idol” will cost advertisers $600,000, making it the highest priced regular season commercial. “Desperate Housewives” comes in second at $394,000 per commercial.
“American Idol” is the No. 1 show for adults ages 18-49, a title it’s held on to for the past three seasons.
Technorati Tags: text messaging, American Idol, Reality TV
One Response to “Reality TV? I’ll stick with my own reality, thank you.”
I am not a fan of reality shows either, Dustin. What may be helping American Idol keep its base so high and viewership so fervent is that they haven’t succomed to the pressure of doing more than one competition per year, thereby keeping the anticipation elevated. It might be interesting to see how Survivor’s viewership and ad rates have been skewing since they started doing two competitions per year. As many of them as they have done now, it’s going to be as stale as “The Real World” pretty soon.
By Anthony J. Davis, D.C. on Jan 25, 2007