What American Idol (& American Television) is really about

We tend to forget that the commercial model that brings us “free” television takes a toll on content.  We learned recently that AT&T may have given Conway, Arkansas groups lessons on how to vote.

Jeff Reisdorfer (@JeffSays) says this isn’t cheating and I have to agree, but its an excellent reminder that though American Idol claims its goal is to find and expose new talent, its prime directive is really to sell product. When one of those products is the votes themselves, and they’re willing to sell as many votes as AT&T customers are willing to buy, it makes the whole enterprise not very credible.

“Judge Judy” makes local stations’ adjacent commercial time particularly attractive to local ambulance chasers, soap operas were so completely designed to sell detergent that they even were so named. And American Idol does an amazing job, even in light of declining ratings, in selling texting to teenage girls.