Sigh, It's 'Idol' Time
So there I was Sunday afternoon, enjoying an afternoon of football playoff games, and I'm not sure which I saw more of -- the NFC Championship game or commercials for "American Idol."
Bleah.
Yes, I am one of those people. The ones who don't watch "Idol." The ones who could care less if someone was "pitchy" this week. The ones who wish that Seacrest was really "out." (As in off my TV full-time ... what did you think I meant?)
The really horrible thing for me is that I can't say that I've never watched it. Yeah, I have. Probably for an aggregated 10 minutes in the past 11 seasons. Mostly because I was getting paid to keep track of local contestants.
So, yeah, it's back. And that just means the barrage is just beginning.
It was practically non-stop Sunday. Every commercial break: "'Idol' is back!" And there's Steven Tyler in a plane. There's Jennifer Lopez ogling a contestant who's making his chest muscles dance. There's Randy Jackson trying to look cool.
Even during the actual game broadcast, there's screen chron's promoting the show.
And, now that I think about it, Tyler sang the national anthem before the AFC game in New England, so there was a subliminal advertisement for the show on CBS, too. That's not going to include all the coverage online and on the cover of the supermarket checkout magazines.
ENOUGH!
I'm not the first to say it, and probably not the last, but if we paid more attention to the things that mattered in our communities than a singing competition, we might live in a better world.
To go a step farther: I would hazard a guess that the ratings of one episode of "Idol" trump the aggregated rating of all the Republican presidential debates they've had in the past year. (And what's that number up to? Fifty? One hundred?)
You know, it's a nice show. It gives people a chance to compete and show off their considerable talents. But a national obsession? C'mon.
Let's save the obsessing for the big picture on how we can improve the "American" part of the show's title, and make it less about the "Idol."
tony
7:23 am on Monday, January 23, 2012
Consider the target audience of Fox is twelve year olds (or the maturity level of same) what do you expect? Or is that the age of their programming directors? Who could possibly be both a fan of the NFL and Idol? People who they think "set it and forget it", same ones who leave the radio on Limbaugh all day long because NPR gives them a headache. I decided to stop watching the NFL on Fox this year just because of constant promos. Too many injuries as well, it's like NASCAR, where the races are half under the yellow flag so people who watch just hoping to see a gory crash won't be disappointed. I'd prefer to see skill not mayhem in a sport. Wasn't too long ago when an NFL game when less than three hours, MLB under 2 1/2. Now it's just tedious to watch with all the interruptions. If it wasn't January I'd be hiking around at the top of the tram with the stranded hikers instead of the winter sport of couch tater!