Buzz Watch: American Idol Kellie Pickler – Mindless Entertainment? Not necessarily.

Authored by Jay Baage on July 18, 2006 - 12:17pm.

On Monday Kellie Pickler became the fourth season-five finalist to sign a recording contract, signing a deal with Sony BMG's Nashville-based country label BNA Records and American Idol producer Simon Fuller's 19 Recordings Limited.
Kellie joins Katharine McPhee, Chris Daughtry and winner Taylor Hicks on the 19 Recordings roster that is now getting bigger and bigger.

Now, will the TV ratings success continue to translate into album sales? Millions and millions have tuned in when American Idol aired on Fox and if just a little share of them buy the albums that these Idol contestants produce, they will become instant hits.

So the Idol contestants get signed, year after year.

“American Idol” remains an enormous pop culture phenomenon. It has helped produce a bona fide pop star in Clay Aiken, a Grammy winner in Kelly Clarkson and has made a national celebrity out of the cranky judge, Simon Cowell. And the “American Idols Live” tour that is going on now is a near instant sell-out everywhere.

Before Kellie Pickler and the other contestants from this year will be able to produce their albums, auditions for the sixth edition of the TV talent show would have already begun. Twelve producers will meet about 100,000 candidates during the fall.

In a recent newspaper article, they interviewed one girl in line for tickets to ”American Idols Live”:
“The American culture loves instant gratification. What’s more instant than making your very own pop star?” she said. “I am not a huge American Idol fan, but have watched it. I, like the rest of America, like mindless entertainment.”

Mindless entertainment or not, American Idol is taking TV into the future. It works on different platforms, it is interactive, it has multiple revenue streams, it is a franchise that is easily renewed and it creates a lot of buzz online.

With all the talent shows on air now inspired by the success of American idol, consumers are literally being trained to expect more creative direction and control across all media, and traditional media is adapting to meet this demand.

To me, that is more exciting than any Idol finale.