Idol Chatter

Admittedly, I’ve never been the biggest fan of American Idol. In fact, the greatest joy I used to receive from the weekly star-search show was the ability to vote (over and over again) for the worst performer of the week. Yes, you read that correctly: the worst performer. You see, considering my penchant for “so bad it’s good” entertainment, it was to my benefit to keep the lousy singers in the contest; it almost made the whole show enjoyable.

And speaking of the worst performers... without Idol, I would never have found my 21st-century bad-singer-to-top-all-bad-singers, William Hung. I'm a proud (that's right - proud) owner of all three William Hung CDs. All praise the Hung.

Bad singers aside, Idol is a harmless little show, but for whatever reason it has failed to ignite within me the fervent passion that it had ignited within millions of other television viewers… viewers who happen include several very good friends of mine.

Well, friends of mine, I have some shocking news to share with you. Brace yourself for this one: while it’s true that American Idol is returning to Fox in January, it may be returning WITHOUT the judge you love to hate, Simon Cowell.

Yes, WITHOUT Simon. Please try to control your gasps of horror.

It seems that the problem stems from a lawsuit between Cowell and Idol creator Simon Fuller. The suit alleges that Cowell stole the format of Idol to launch a talent competition in Great Britain entitled X Factor.

Further complicating matters is that this season, for the first time, Simon Cowell’s recording company will not be producing the musical release of the winning contestant; instead, the rights to the winning performer’s (and runner-up's) music have been granted to Sony. Now, think about it: if you were Simon Cowell, and you owned your own record company, would you want to produce America’s next big star… for your competitor??? Not exactly a big incentive to return to the show, is it?

A note purely from the world of speculation: if talks do become contentious, Cowell could simply leave Idol behind, transport his British X Factor concept over here to the good ol' US of A, and thereby start a franchise of his own on another network.

Then again, Idol is too important to Fox’s bottom line to let its main star slip away without a fight. The jury’s still out on this one.

In other Idol news... Fox is considering switching Idol’s traditional Tuesday/Wednesday scheduling to a Wednesday/Thursday scheduling. Moving such a high-profile mega-hit is always a risky proposition, but Fox has been down this road before.

You see, once upon a time there was this little family named the Simpsons, and they were sent by their fledging, barely 4-year-old network called Fox on what many considered to be a television-suicide mission. Their mission was to take on, head-to-head, a family known as the Huxtables. If television were a kingdom, then back then the Huxtables would have been considered its royal family.

That was fifteen years ago. The Huxtables are looooong gone. As for that Simpson family? Perhaps you caught their 17th-season opener a few weeks ago…

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Here We Go-Ho-Ho Again

No sooner do I mention the “all-Christmas-all-the-time” format flip on radio station LiteRock105, then holiday-mania hits yet ANOTHER Southeastern New England station. This time, it’s Coast 93.3 (WSNE, 93.3FM) that has flipped (literally and/or figuratively, depending on your point of view) to the it’s-way-too-early-for-this-music musical format.

Thank you SO MUCH, Clear Channel (parent company of Coast 93.3); this is just what Providence needs. TWO all-Christmas radio stations... before Thanksgiving, no less. Yet we can’t even get ONE retro-80s station. This is just another indication that Providence radio is in need of a serious overhaul.

Hey... did I just hear someone mention Sirius satellite radio…?