American Article

With so many shows on television lately, it is often a wonder who is actually watching the shows.  Advertisers are obviously extremely concerned with who is watching a show because it impacts their advertising budget, but many times, it is important to realize who is actually watching the show for different reasons as well.  What you may not realize is that the actual viewers of the show can impact you in several ways.

The first way we have already touched on a bit, and that is because of advertises.  If you are watching a television show that is watched by mostly children you can expect to see a lot of toy commercials and even video game commercials.  This is because these types of items are what children live for.  How many kids do you know of that decide to beg their parents for a tomato plant?  What about a fabulous new home improvement project?  Most kids are more concerned with the latest in toys and that shows based on the commercials that are pushed during kid friendly shows.  While parents may not appreciate this advertising ploy it has proven extremely effective for most companies and will likely be used for a very long time.

In the case of American Idol, the type of people who are watching the show also tends to heavily reflect on who the winner will be.  Thanks to the success of shows like Nashville Star there are very few country music sensations coming from the American Idol camp.  However, you do on occasion have a country treasure to find, after all Carrie Underwood and a few other Idol rejects are doing extremely well in country music.  The personality of the viewers tends to show in the actual contestants.  Those who perform well in styles of music that the audience can connect with tend to stay on the show much longer.

Regardless of how it might not seem like the particulars of who is watching American Idol effects you in reality it is extremely important.  What could happen often is a dramatic shift in viewers, which can ultimately cause your favorite singer to be cast off to the side and replaced by someone who fits into the personality of the majority a bit better.  Of course, you can always hope to be on the majority side when it comes to selecting the perfect American Idol, but with changes and shifts in demographics, it is also possible that you could find yourself up against a whole cast of potential Idols that you are not interested in.

What might seem extremely confusing in terms of who is actually watching the show is actually quite simple.  Most people can agree, American Idol does really well with most viewers who are 40 and younger.  While the show does manage to pick up some viewers in the older categories, it is not anywhere near the numbers that they are used to seeing from the younger crowds.  This leaves many problems when it comes time to really decide which demographic is the top winner.  Most professionals tend to agree that American Idol has a very large following of viewers but the truth of who is watching the show is sometimes startling.

As one of the top shows on television, you may discover that your shrink, your doctor, your lawyer, your mechanic and your tennis coach all watch the show.  The overall diversity of viewers is one of the biggest attractions that pulls in advertisers.  Not only can companies advertise their products during the show, it is absolutely incredible the way the viewers are pulled from all ages, all careers and even all parts of the country.  Working to keep viewership up is certainly not easy, but American Idol has found the ultimate secret to success, and working with this success they continue to grow and develop new ideas for keeping viewers interested and also new contestants coming to the show year after year.

If you have ever stopped and watched the show, you have no doubt noticed that there are several people who manage to be extremely successful without actually winning the show.  With this in mind, how is it possible for people to ultimately be successful if they do not win?  Yet at the same time, there are several people who are capable of winning the show but yet never manage to find ultimate success.  The horrible reality is most people are not capable of finding true success on the show.

With so many people trying out for American Idol each year it is extremely important to locate the best talent in the country.  At times, this can be really easy to do, however on other occasions it can be much more complicated as people struggle to determine which contestants are really best.  With a large number of contestants, there are plenty of opportunities to learn exactly what it is that you are looking for in a musician.  Nevertheless, while we as viewers are afforded the ability to truly select what we want for the American Idol, it is much harder for the contestants to determine what they need to do to be truly successful.

For many idols, the dream of being truly successful is extremely hard to actually fulfill.  For other contestants it is something that is extremely easy to accomplish.  For example, contestants such as Chris Daughtry are capable of pulling the audience into their performances, which can make it extremely easy to go on to a truly successful recording contract.  As you have no doubt noticed, there are several former American Idol contestants who have been faced with extremely bad commercial success after winning the show.

One of the best examples of this is the small size of the careers of winners like Fantasia, Taylor Hicks and even Ruben Studdard.  While artists like Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks and even Kelly Clarkson have gone onto astronomical success.  The newest winner, David Cook is just getting started after winning and it is unclear just how successful he will really be.  With a truly great appeal it is possible that he can go onto become the next Carrie Underwood, but he could turn out to be the next Taylor Hicks instead.

Regardless of which end of the spectrum each contestant falls, there is nothing at all that guarantees success. Of course, the show itself always takes pride on ensuring that at least the winner is offered a recording contract, however much beyond this is left to the actual contestant and the type of music that they select to pick out.  Many people might think that each of the winners will go onto huge success, but as prior indications have shown, this is sometimes far from the actual truth.

For the contestants who are lucky enough to find total success it is a great accomplishment.  However, it is very important that the other contestants not be ruled out as well.  There are often times when the contestants who do not actually win the show go on to be much better commercial success than the actual winners.  Just take a look at Season 5; while Taylor Hicks was the actual winner, Chris Daughtry has been much more successful.  This could even lead you to question whom ultimate won the show, while Taylor walked away with the number one position, Chris has walked away with awards, more money and much more commercial success.

Watching each contestant develop into someone that you are actually interested in watching grow professionally can be a lot of fun.  There are several times when it is lots of fun to watch the underdeveloped contestants grow into actual artists.  With plenty of opportunities to prove themselves, American Idol does allow plenty of great artists a perfect springboard for their musical career, how they choose to use their springboard varies, but after being sent home as a 4th place contestant I’m sure Chris Daughtry would agree that winning the actual contest is not all that matters.