Net does its part to bring down American Idol

Given the dearth of creativity and talent on American Idol, you'd think the show by now would have suffered a fate worse than the Hindenburg. Alas, the series is in its sixth season, so a handful of altruistic souls have taken to the net in a campaign to torpedo the show. Sanjaya Malakar on Fox TV Among the more amusing …

[Matt]

Sad to say, but its true

I only watch the auditions, but only for the arse-clenchingly bad ones.

[Jim Howes]

Vote for the worst? Which one?

Do the americans not know that in Europe, we have a tradition of voting for terrible songs. We do it every year. This year, it's on the 12th of May, coming at you live from Helsinki, Finland. Details at http://www.eurovision.tv/content/view/140/126/

[Tom Watson]

Better way to bring it down

Just don't watch. Change the channel!

[Anonymous Coward]

Be serious

Does anyone actually believe that the voting has any bearing on the winner at all? The producers make their money on the recording contract and subsequent promotion of the winner as a "star".

Trust me, the "winner" is determined long before the series goes on the air.

-Rick

[Anonymous Coward]

A vote for the truth

There is an obvious way to prevent misuse of phone voting (and, at the same time, to prevent unjust enrichment of the promotors) and that is to make it a legal requirement for the votes to be come from ID-enabled telephones, to be independently audited, and to count only *one* vote from each discrete telephone number unless plural people have pre-registered an intention to vote from the same number and their identities verified.

However, it is not helped by groups such as the Electoral Reform Society supposedly auditing some of these votes, yet completely overlooking multiple voting because they are paid to overlook them.

What kind of electoral reform is it that endorses doing away with the time-honoured concept of one person, one vote and replaces it with one where the voters with the fattest wallets wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rigging a premium rate phone vote would be highly illegal

"Trust me, the "winner" is determined long before the series goes on the air."

If that's true, that would constitute a massive multi-million dollar fraud as the programme makes money from the voting calls.

Channel 4 got into deep trouble with the last Big Brother when they brought back someone who had earlier been evicted by the viewers, for the same reason.

[Cliff]

Every vote makes them richer

For fuck's sake, voting encourages them - doesn't matter who you vote for, the producers and network just see phone revenue and talk about 'record levels of interest in American Idol with (big number) votes in this popular and closely run competition'.

If you want to firebomb AI and it's clones, walk away, or write to the sponsors and advertisers saying just why you're not going to buy their product, it'll vanish off air as soon as it's starved of $, mid-season or not.

[chris]

hangs head

As a Brit I'm sorry we inflicted this on you.

I agree though, the winner is pre defined. The phone in nos just allow a recoup of money.

PLEASE stop watching this drivel, if it gets bad viewing figures then the network will drop it....

Oh, but then you watch days of basketball/baseball which are also useless but non-sport people have to put up with that as well.

Conclusion: Yanks are useless at sticking up for themselves.

[Adam]

American Idol and American President

"Trust me, the "winner" is determined long before the series goes on the air."

"Conclusion: Yanks are useless at sticking up for themselves."

We know this already - twice they've allowed George Dubbya to be appointed President, and have just sat back and accepted it.

Seems like the "American Idol" and "American President" voting systems have much more in common than just the poor quality of the candidates!

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't work you know.

Audience numbers speak - and so the only way to torpedo the show is to come up with a better one.

An online karioke show should do the trick, perhaps via a standalone website or through an online internet tv broadcaster.

[Anonymous Coward]

On Yanks, you Brit

"Conclusion: Yanks are useless at sticking up for themselves."

Not all Americans are Yankees, but I wouldn't expect a Brit to know about that! (although being from a Northern state, I do think that being a Yankee is preferrable - we have nicer accents).

[Jason Abbott]

Tell your Girlfriend's to change the channel...

Two-thirds of votes are made by women. Anyone else notice all the entries on this article are men? We for the most part (except the horrible auditions) HATE American Idol. I love the fact that twerp Sanjaya is going to stay on there and perplex the judges as they have to let him through.

The show is terrible. Brits who thought this garbage up?

I say protest your girlfriend or your wife's TV habits, or force her to watch old Star Trek reruns, with samplings from Magnum P.I. Miami Vice and the A-Team.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bleedin Obvious

"What kind of electoral reform is it that endorses doing away with the time-honoured concept of one person, one vote and replaces it with one where the voters with the fattest wallets wins?"

The American voting system?

[Roger Merchberger]

Go, Howard Stern, Go!

Quote: "I say protest your girlfriend or your wife's TV habits, or force her to watch old Star Trek reruns, with samplings from Magnum P.I. Miami Vice and the A-Team."

Makes me damn glad my wife prefers Stargate SG-1! And no, I'm not gonna bugger with you Brits, because even tho you may have started things like AI & Big Brother, you also gave us Dr. Who & Benny Hill! Thankfully, I grew up watching the latter as I live on the Canadian border, and could pick up the CBC broadcasts of BH.

Roger

P.S. IMHO, Brits *don't* have any reason to complain about base/basketball... you have cricket, after all. When most people who know how it's played can't explain how (or in some cases why) it's played... ;-)