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Sunday, June 29, 2008

American Idol --- Is it still an option for stardom?

By: Joshua Alston (Vibe Magazine; pg. 31-34; May 2008)

American Idol creates music industry royalty. But with the finale of Idol's seventh (7th) season looming (David Cook won), labels are dropping past winners and the model is floundering. Are the days of pop reality show dominance dead?

On November 28, 2007, the word "failure" had its parameters reset. That Sunday, the previous week's record sales were released, revealing that Jive's self-titled debut album from 18-year-old Jordin Sparks, the sixth winner of American Idol, debuted at the bottom of Billboard's top 10 albums. Not only did Sparks' debut appear in the lowest first-week chart position of any idol winner, moving 119,000 copies, the album's total sales were the lowest in the show's history. In today's imploding music marketplace, a previously unknown artist selling 119,000 copies of their debut would be deemed a massive success. Though Sparks was previously unknown, she was also---at least in theory---the country's hottest new pop star.

When reality television began to boom, producers quickly realized that viewers were invested in how the contestants got there, the drama in the joys, creative meltdowns, and quiet backstabbing inherent to glamour professions. Idol, like Making The Band and others, was borne of this idea and the notion that cross-platform products---like a pop star and a television show---could sell each other. But after peaking with megastars like Fantasia and Kelly Clarkson, the genre appears to be on the decline. In both television ratings and record sales, the relationship between show and artist has become increasingly lopsided.

Says Sharon Dastur (Program Director at N.Y.'s Z100 [WHTZ-FM]), "In the finals, American Idol winners always have that championship song, and back in the day, people asked, 'When are you going to play it?' But over the last four years, that hasn't been the case."

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Searching the Web for the next big thing!

By: Marco R. della Cava (USA Today - Fri/Sat/Sun, May 30-June 1, 2008)

"There's a huge cultural change going on out there, The model of how people consume their entertainment is totally up in the air," says Jason Nadler of United Talent Agency.

That's not the only thing up for grabs. The foundation of Hollywood's dominance in pop culture and the entertainment industry is being threatened by the democratizing force of the internet, which posits that anyone with a snappy idea and a video camera can dish up features to the masses.

Network executives are busy signing deals with online content producers with a knack for wooing audiences with short attention spans.

There are some encouraging signs for the executives diving into an unpredictable world of entertainment fueled largely by the whims of twentysomethings:

- For companiesused to spending millions of dollars on talent and programs, the Web is a bargain on both fronts.

- For what you spend on one TV Pilot, you could do an endless online serial.

- The beauty of the Web is that you can easily test an idea and move on.

Although media companies of all types continue to wrestle with how to make money from the Web, money is flowing into that part of the entertainment industry at a time when TV and Film are finding it increasingly difficult to capture audiences. Online advertising spending is projected to double to $50 billion by 2012, according to forecasting group eMarketer.

"Ultimately, what will win out on the Web is story-driven content," says Michael Eisner (former Disney Chief).

"Online entertainment is as different from TV as TV is from film", says Brent Weinstein (former chief of United Talent Agency's Online Division).

Thoughts from an online content producer: "When we first started getting attention, people would say, 'Hey, you've got a great steppingstone into the world of real entertainment.' But from day 1, we never felt the internet was some sort of proving ground. It's a new platform, period!"