T U E S D AY, M A R C H 2 8 , 2 0 0 6"Rolling Stone" On "American Idol"Rolling Stone has a cover story promising "The secrets of theunstoppable starmaking machine" that is American Idol.</p><p> As if anyonecould reveal new secrets about a series so thoroughly dissected by now.They picture Simon, Paula and Randy in bed together.</p><p> Inside, what weget doesn't even pretend to do that: it's simply a profile of Simon, withtiny boxes devoted to Paula, Randy, Ryan, Simon Fuller andpredictions on this season's contestants.</p><p> But it's filled with foolishexaggeration and mistakes. (Shouldn't Rolling Stone be the onemagazine to take a more sober look at AI?) They say the show "usually"hits 35 million viewers per episode.</p><p> Try "almost never." The last monthor so, the audience has been 33 million, 32 million, 28 million, 30million, 31 million and so on.</p><p> That's of course for the performanceshows.</p><p> The results shows are invariably lower rated. 33 million is a tonof viewers, but it isn't 35 million.</p><p> You have to go back to January, whenit scored 34.96 million viewers for one show to back that stat up.</p><p> Youcould say "sometimes as high as 35 million viewers," but not "usually."Does it matter? Yes.</p><p> The show is a phenomenon, so why exaggerate itsratings? They also say "the show has drawn more viewers than everbefore, a historic anomaly that television's statisticians are stillstruggling to comprehend." Also not true.</p><p> It's certainly verynoteworthy, but other shows have grown in viewership even furtherinto their runs than Idol, most notably Law & Order.</p><p> Again, the fact ofgrowth is impressive; why pretend it's never happened before? ThenRS says this: "Has any British import in recent history rooted anydeeper into the national psyche than Cowell? His words and mannershave been debated constantly for the past five years." I watch the showfaithfully, but this seems pretty overblown even to me.</p><p> And how aboutPrincess Di, for one small example? Finally, they talk about his earlysuccess marketing pop album tie-ins to non-music properties likeTeletubbies, Power Rangers and WWF wrestlers, insisting that "thiskind of tie-in approach had never been attempted." I'm not sure hownarrowly they want to define this, but pop music is littered with tie-inalbums to kiddie TV shows, comic book characters, movies and otherancillary products that technically had nothing to do with music, fromLittle Orphan Annie and half the products of Disney to the Smurfs andon.</p><p> Again, I don't expect much from RS but they should at least knowthe history of pop music and novelty tie-ins.Next Blog»sal1mineo@hotmail.comSEARCH BLOG FLAG BLOGFOLLOW BLOGP O P S U R F I N G .</p><p> C O MS U R F I N G T H E WAV E S O F P O P U L A R C U LT U R EB Y M I C H A E L G I LT Z & F R I E N D SPOPSURFING.COM: "Rolling Stone" On "American Idol"http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/03/rolling-stone-on-americ... 1 of 37/29/09 2:28 AMFAV O R I T E L I N K SAmericablogFive O'Clock Lightning baseball blogDeep Pop -- Lori Lakin's BlogThe Back Page -- Jason Page on ESPNRadioCine-Blog -- George Robinson's BlogDocuments On Art & Cinema - DarylChin's BlogBrucie G's Wondrous Blog OfAdventure and Mystery -- BruceGreenspan's BlogB L O G A R C H I V E▼ 2009 (17)▼ July (3)1939 -- The Greatest Year ForMoviesSwimming Bans Those Hi-TechSuits!Best Movies Of The Year -- TheMaster List► June (3)► May (1)► March (2)► February (1)► January (7)► 2008 (86)► 2007 (781)► 2006 (2412)► 2005 (5)C O N T R I B U TO R SAaronMichael in New YorkBiboy POPSURFING.COM: "Rolling Stone" On "American Idol"http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/03/rolling-stone-on-americ... 2 of 37/29/09 2:28 AMPOPSURFING.COM: "Rolling Stone" On "American Idol"http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/03/rolling-stone-on-americ... 3 of 37/29/09 2:28 AM
