Idol and out.

At last we have the winner of American Idol! It’s been festering for weeks but now ‘the winner is…………the bloke.’ Who cares?We may have had the winner from Amnerican Idol but the winner OF American Idol is you know who. Watching last night you could easily have forgotten to award someone the prize at the end of the show, in fact it was kind of disrespectful. Even from Fox’s point of view they should have had a Simon show next week and treated that as his last night. It could have then been a celebration with a fine array of artists, testimonials and his speech away from everything else. As regards ‘their night’ it was pretty insulting to the new American Idol, they were playing a poor third and fourth around the rest of the show. We had Cowell, a string of acts and …the final two. It was like an afterthought, ‘Oh look let’s not forget to give someone this.’

No one can dispute the single most important ingredient in it’s continued success and that is the man himself. It was nothing more than another talent show, another stab at Reality TV until the Cowell boy stepped up and turned it in to what it became. Make no mistake. he changed the way Americans watched television and the rest of the world for that matter. It became a global brand of gigantic proportions.

Trying to mix a send off with a finale was all wrong. Simon did deserve all those people turning up, it should have been a party, a celebration and a fitting farewell but on it’s own. They tried to make it all things to all people when an extra week of Simon Idol would have got them massive ratings. The problem there though it would probably surpassed all other ratings for the competition and exposed Simon Cowell as bigger than any contestant, show, judge or entire audience. It was like the two finalists were told. ‘Stick around we have something for you later.’

And so ‘the King is gone, long live the King.’ Where now, well nowhere I hope. He said it himself, ‘you know when the time  is right  to go ( well maybe he was one series late on that but he had a big fat contract, why not take the cash!) The trouble is can Fox and Freemantle own up to that, will they bow down rather than run the risk of getting battered by both the media and the ratings? If they persist it would be mad, how much more money do they need to make. it’s outlasted most soap operas, the story has met it’s natural conclusion. The star met his new bride and he’s settling down with her, get your things and go.

Filed under: TV, american idol, Fox TV, Simon Cowell

TMP

Running my own company out of the city where I lived was a dream come true but being allowed to indulge in my hobby was way above dreaming!  I’d survived working in the music industry for seven or eight years when the opportunity arose to start my own regional promotion company. ‘What’s that?’ I hear you say. In a nutshell we got paid to get artists on television and their records played on local radio, local being the whole of the British Isles. I’d been initiated in to the world of promotion at Island Records and I can’t think of a better place with better mentors. They had a unique ability to bring together good, talented and hard working people who had a passion for music. Everyone who worked there already owned half of their catalogue and like myself, they were honored to be a part of it. I have mentioned before that it always felt weird thinking I would no longer have to pay for their records, I’d get them free and be paid to give them to other people. I would have gladly done the job for free.

There’s a time and a place and it somehow felt right. I had been offered the head of promotion job at Island but didn’t want to relocate down to London, why should I? Manchester was my home, so let the work come to me. Regional promotions up until was something the record companies handled in house and never to the extent that it was much of  a priority. They knew regional radio existed but it was mostly a task they’d give an assistant to do. If they were mailing records out then they thought if you get some time find out if these people are playing anything. Their entire focus was on the ‘big one’ Radio One, the UK’s national radio station. If they had a record on the playlist there then it had a good chance of being a hit, something I would never dispute. My argument was that more people listened to the combined commercial radio stations than listened to Radio One so they couldn’t be avoided. And furthermore they were on the rise, more and more of them were springing up all the time since the government had changed the monopoly the BBC had. If you want to be at the forefront then don’t get left behind and through the eighties and in to the nineties they continued to grow in numbers and in importance.

I had enormous fun when I began, just me and a mobile phone driving up and down the motorways of England visiting radio and television stations and a girl in the office answering the phone and saying, ‘he’s not here you can get him on his mobile.’ Seemed to make more sense than a random answaphone message and people either hanging up or getting frustrated. Just to be in the music business was enough but to be given an opportunity to run my own company, to stand and fall by my own decisions was more both exciting and motivating.

I say stand and fall by your own decisions because that is exactly what it entailed. In the past I was given records to promote but had no real choice and it wasn’t whether or not I liked them. They were paying my wages so that was my job but now this was something entirely different. Fortunately I had some people I respected in senior positions at records companies plus some others with a proven track record who had started to dabble in the world of record labels so I landed some quite significant projects. And once in I never looked back, it was an amazing journey with some equally amazing people.

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, PR, record companies, independant promotion, independent local radio, regional promotion, TMP

Fallen, beaten Idol

I don’t take any pleasure in gloating and indeed I’m not but I’m hardly suprised to see the ratings in American Idol have plummeted to the lowest since 2002 when the monster show rolled in to town and when no one really knew or cared who Simon Cowell was. Don’t take my word for it. http://kl.am/bWed

This season’s lame attempt to better all the others has fallen short on every level imaginable. Firstly, and without question the weakest selection of contestants in their history. Not far behind in second place is the panel, surely they can see that? Right from it’s inception Simon had convinced the program makers that four judges just didn’t work, they tried it  a couple of times to try to prove him wrong. So they all agreed with him then, what changed?.

The secret to success and continued success in television is to understand your audience and to understand what they want, what they need and what tempts them to watch in the first place. Yes try something different but American Idol is not a show that is about radical change. This is wallpaper TV, it’s pap, it’s fodder. Simon would agree, it’s not there to reinvent the wheel, it’s not even there to oil it. It’s there for it to go round and round. They, the audience  need a staple diet of something they can understand, something they can relate to. And let’s be brutally honest we are appealing to the least discerning viewer here, they don’t have really high standards, they just like to be entertained. In it’s heyday American Idol provided that but now each series is trying to upstage the last, do something different. But it’s not about change , it’s about lowest common denominator, this is not the Educational Channel damn it !

American Idol is losing out to Dancing with the Stars here in America, now let’s note the difference here. Oh yes that’s it, DWTS’s has stars on it not faceless wannabees. OK we’ve solved the problem, people watch someone who has done something rather than someone who is trying to do everything. Why are we subjected to these people doing Beatles songs, then Elton John songs then Frank Sinatra??? Is it Slipnot next week, maybe Marilyn Manson or possibly The Grateful Dead?

When are they ever be going to make a record with eleven different cover versions on it, when are they ever going to tour that? We are not talking Rod Stewart doing this, Rod has earned it, Rod can do what he wants. These aren’t multi talented singers, they are people being pulled out of a car park with an opportunity of a lifetime sent out by the machine to do as they are told. How ludicrous to put Crystal Botox or whatever she’s called in a gown, she’s not a gowny girl! She won’t win a Grammy so she won’t ever wear one again. She’ll be locked out of the ball.

American Idol has outstayed it’s welcome, doesn’t Simon sooooo want out? You can see every tortured  smile, every ‘let me out of here’ gesture. He knew this was his swansong but contractually he had to turn up and smile. Good luck with X Factor Simon, like you have any competition?

And of course there is Ryan Seacrest.

Filed under: TV, TV hosts, american idol, Frank Sinatra, Ryan Seacrest