Comments on: American Idol: could we have seen it coming?

By: kevrob

kevrob — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:39:22 +0000

Jens is right about the producers' having a strong hand when they brought the show's original British success to the table. As for talent shows fading out at the end of the 1950s, that isn't how I looked at it. Ted Mack on TV, continuing from Major Bowes before him on the radio, kept the Original Amateur Hour alive until 1970, though Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts didn't make it past 1958. Ed McMahon revived it as Star Search, running from from 1983 to 1995. SS had an unsuccessful revival, post-Idol. The talent show format didn't fare well in the 1970s. Perhaps that's because the dominant mode of popular music had changed in the 1960a from the solo performer to the rock band, and, to some extent, the recording studio act that doesn't depend on live performance much. Some of the Disco Era acts were nearly as fictional as the Detergents or The Archies. As we hit the 80s, disco retreated to the dance clubs, punk and new wave tried and failed to re-make pop, and the ideal of the pop star was revived (especially through the music video). That's where Ed McMahon comes in, though notably as the host of a syndicated, not a network program. SS never had the impact of Godfrey's program, which had rated as #1, or of Idol. But the stars of that period, especially Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, are practically the patron saints of the melismatic warblings of the ladies of American Idol. I'm thinking the popularity of talent shows waxes and wanes, and that the fickle Finger of Fate will eventually trip up AI. The only question is how long the fad will last. Kevin

By: Marketing Pop Culture

Marketing Pop Culture — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 00:47:03 +0000

Hard[er] out here for a CMO

As reported in Adweek, CMO tenure is down: the global nature of today’s economy and the speed at which it moves has left many CEOs with unrealistic expectations, said Ian Beavis, vice president of marketing for Kia Motors America. Many

By: Tom Guarriello

Tom Guarriello — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:02:05 +0000

Somewhere between epistemological certainty and hand-flailing despair at the prospect of knowing anything at all lies a land of informed decision-making. A little hard to imagine, it’s probably the only thing resembling a “safe haven” that any corporation can sail for today. Good one, Grant.

By: steve

steve — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 03:19:36 +0000

There are structual problems with strong predictions of the kind Grant wants; McCloskey’s If You’re So Smart gives a very entertaining and insightful rendition of these problems with respect to economic forecasting, literary criticism, etc. First, there’s the effiicient markets problem–if there exists a system that predicts what will work tomorrow, everyone will buy up/launch their own version of that content today, which will destroy the profits. Second, anyone who could predict accurately how successful different cultura products were going to be would be a fool to sell her expertise on this basis–she could cash in better by producing her own content. It’s like those ads for get-rich-quick schemes, where the seller would be using his knowledge rather than selling it if it were in fact valuable.

Aside from these inherent structural problems, I’d be worried that there is a pretty strong butterfly effect with mass-culture popularity. Small shocks to viewership or coverage at an early stage may be wildly amplified. It seems clear that once many people start discussing a given show, others will join in simply to avoid being left out of the conversation. This phenomenon locks in popularity for a time because it’s hard for the public to coordinate on a new fad, but eventually taste leaders and/or simple boredom lead to something else catching fire. Remember when Who Wants to be a Millionaire conquered all before it? Now it’s just another show. Same for Survivor. Trying to come up with cultural explanations, even after the fact, for why this show and not that one hits it big strikes me as impossible in principle.

It would be kind of cool if I were wrong about this, though.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:00:49 +0000

I guess these are the same questions, Grant, which Hollywood studio execs, music industry execs, TV network programmers, art gallery directors, etc, ask when they come to make content funding decisions. Who would have bet on Seinfeld being a huge hit when it piloted, for example? I suspect (but please don’t tell our clients this) that the answer to these questions is: “Nobody knows anything”.

By: jens

jens — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:06:28 +0000

and just to bring it down to the boring old facts:
a guy who had previously created the SpiceGirls out of some semi-talented next door teenagers thought that he could repeat the same thing over and over again with virtually anybody. as it was the time where the money had moved to TVshows like BigBrother, he thought that he should share the fun of creation with a wide audience (and cash in twice). – the british show PopIdol became a raving success. – very, very rich and a little bored with creating he pitched exactly the same format to investors in the US.

i should think he had quite some cards in his hand when he spoke to tccc.

By: Jonas

Jonas — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:56:53 +0000

The numbers from your Flock and Flow System.

By: jens

jens — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 03:40:32 +0000

what numbers, grant? – who should come up with a vaguely precise forecast? – even an anthropologist would have probably seen it stranded on the shores of 1959… seriously: when you would have had to make a prediction to justify a gigantic spending of one of your clients, you would have probably come up with a moderate estimate and a phrase saying: …and there is still an extremely high risk involved.
and that – to my concern – is the point.
where should the numbers come from?

it is a high stake poker game.
creativity and the new organization.