Why Ryan Seacrest is New Media’s Secret Weapon
I’ll be the first to admit that Ryan Seacrest does not exactly seem like an agent of the future. But when The New York Times chose to mention American Idol as an example of broadcast television’s popularity it made me realize something.
American Idol is not Television.
American Idol is MySpace under the guise of a TV show.
The same things which make Delicious and Flickr so popular on the internet makes American Idol popular on television.
User Generated Content
The singers from American Idol come from all across America. But unlike Star Search and it’s clones we actually get to watch and be involved in the process. We can stand in line to try out or we can watch others try out.
Heavy Audience Participation
Without the audience there is no television show.The public votes every week on who stays and goes.
Simplicity
What’s less complicated than singing a song and letting people vote on if you’re good or not.
So Ryan Seacrest, instead of being a questionably talented, super-lucky metrosexual, is actually a harbinger of the future. He’s teaching the children the fundementals of new media and will be partially responsible for destroying the broadcasters which made him famous.
American Idol is old media upside down.
And you thought Paula Abdul was only going to be remembered for “Straight Up“.
March 12, 2006 at 4:43 pm
You are funny. Ryan Seacrest really gets on my nerves. I feel better knowing that he is destroying television as we know it. Thank You!
March 12, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Char,
not sure if you were at SXSW, but they had a whole panel aimed at one of your posts, it was how the internet is affecting teenage girls and vice versa. They should have a podcast of it up in a couple days. you should check it out.
March 13, 2006 at 9:04 am
I didn’t attend, but I’ll check out the podcast. Thanks!
March 13, 2006 at 4:38 pm
I love Ryan Seacrest. I thought he was gay but I think I was wrong. He dresses very nice though.
March 14, 2006 at 9:50 am
American Idol is just the same old “sausage making” of the music industry, just (partly) done in public.
Instead of AR people going to small clubs and hearing bad bands, singers come to them. First they sing for a few levels of assistant producers (this is analogous to the AR guys on the road), if they make that cut, they sing for Simon et al. If they make that cut (and I’m guessing there are people involved in that beyod just the 3 faces on TV) then they go on to the next step.
“Going to Hollywood” is analogous to “getting signed to a small deal”, it is no guarantee of success. It’s the same old media gatekeepers it’s always been deciding who the public will be exposed to.
Then finally, the people get to start to vote. But like always, they only get to vote on who the media gatekeepers decide to expose them to. This is when the people have always voted, either they like your shit and vote for you (or in the old model, buy it) or they don’t.
There is nothing “long tail” about American Idol.
March 15, 2006 at 10:50 pm
American Idol is an interesting anomaly. It vexes all other programmers (of TV content), and yet, it reflects a mainstream not really covered by the youth market (the Myspace generation). I’m not even sure they (MyGen) think of AI as “music,” but instead, a far more glitzy bit put on by YouTube. –Chris of [chrisbrogan.com]
April 9, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Potential Promise (Or, The Key to Building Network Value)
The problem with just audiences is that without a performance the audience becomes a group that disperses, leaving nothing. (We saw this with Friendster and we’ll see it again with …