Does the international public really think that Kurt Nilsen was the best singer in the World Idol competition? I suspect not. The real winner in terms of being the best singer and performer is probably Kelly Clarkson. In my previous post I suggested that Clarkson was the stand-out performer but would suffer from anti-American sentiment around the world. How strong was that sentiment? Hard to say, but it clearly showed up in the Arab world vote where she came in second last (so I understand). Clearly this was a result not of performance or musical taste (they went for the Polish singer Alex) but of regional politics. That she didn’t come in absolute last in this area might be a sign that the US can redeem itself in Arab eyes.
I suspect (and there is no way of knowing for sure without doing polling, which of course no-one is going to do now) that Nilsen was a beneficiary of everyone wanting their own regional idol to win. In my previous post I tipped him as a likely winner because he was the “least offensive” and his gap toothed smile also gave him a chance of “underdog” status.
Another factor which may have worked in his favour was that the voting turnout was low. Only the most motivated were actually voting, and motivated voters are more likely than others to think tactically.
Next time (if there is one) they run a World Idol contest can I suggest some tweaking to the voting system? Rather than automatically giving each contestant 12 points from their home “electorate” they should allow voters to vote for their own country representative and decide how many points they get by benchmarking their first preference vote against all the other first preference votes cast for home country participants in all the other “electorates”. They should then require preferential voting down the ticket for all the other contestants. That way they would generate a much higher voting turnout which should give a deeper result. Whether this will be a better result is a different (and ultimately unknowable) question.
Of course, they could only conduct this sort of voting over the Internet which would mean some modification of the sms voting procedure that they use now. As sms is one of their revenue streams you couldn’t expect them not to use it. This could be achieved by requiring anyone wanting to vote to send a blank sms message in. The Idol people could then send back a randomly generated identifier which could be used to then vote online. Not only would they generate twice the sms revenue as this would involve two, not one, messages which the voters could be charged for, but it would ensure that voters only lodged one vote each.
If anyone from World Idol is dedicated to scouring the web for posts on their competition and wanted to know more I’d be happy to explore the possibilities! 😉 National Forum could probably even handle their software requirements and introduce some qual into their polling.
January 04, 2004 | Graham
World Idol needs political and polling consultants
5 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I must begin by saying I’m somewhat amused to be making a comment on the World Idol program in a serious context. It’s a tad frightening. But on the issue of world polling, the issue with the Idol program is that it is:
(1) a misnomer: to be an “idol” is to be an object of excessive devotion or worship. None of the world idol representatives were an object of excessive desire, as the polls were rigged to give each country’s representative the highest number of votes. So it’s not the number of votes or the preferences that count – just an overall tally per country. That’s not based on excessive devotion, but a process of elimination. Even proportional representation would have been better than the voting system employed….. and….
(2) Not about talent. The idol program doesn’t vote on the best performers or the best quality. Winners on Idol, Survivor, Big Brother and all other reality programs are those who may have some talent, but are generally the least likely to trigger a prejudicial reaction in audiences. It’s not the best of the best, but rather, the least offensive of the rest. In the age of reality television, we have given birth to a new breed of hero: the mediocre megastar.
Comment by jj — January 5, 2004 @ 9:00 am
Jo, _You’re_ amused? It doesn’t sit easily with my classical musical training either, but the politics of things, including taste, fascinate me. I think the Idol competition stands apart from the other elimination reality programmes because it is a talent quest and there is a quality issue in there mixed up with the popularity quotient part of it. I don’t think viewers just say “Who do I like as a person?” I think they also ask “Who do I like as a performer”.
It’s actually a lot like what you get in real life music sales. Is Kylie Minogue really one of the best singers we’ve produced, or is she just one of the best packaged ones? Would Delta Goodrem be anything without her sweet wholesome face? Isn’t the reason that pop stars do all they can to get in the magazines that getting bought is about a lot more than just making the right squawks from your larynx? You might retort that none of these singers are “idols”, but then I think the term “idol” in this sense is poking fun at itself in a very commercial postmodern way.
From where I sit popular music (and a lot of other popular tastes) has long been about the “mediocre megastar”. Even the way it is composed is mediocre. If talent was all that counted (to shift fields) we would all be using Macs.
Idol makes the relationship between critic, sales, talent and popular opinion more transparent than the way singers are generally discovered, developed and sold, but that doesn’t make it fundamentally different.
BTW, what was the proportional representation idea?
Comment by Graham Young — January 5, 2004 @ 1:52 pm
This is just Stupid. Kurt was the best and you are just a whining bad looser since you can’t handle that Kurt was the best of the night.
Comment by Øystein — January 10, 2004 @ 2:31 am
KELLY CLARKSON SHOULD WIN IN WORLD IDOL KURT SUX KELLY IS BETTA THEN EVERYONE SHES THE BEST SINGER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD
KELLY CLARKSON ROX 4 EVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IM HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE FAN OF KELLY CLARKSON
Comment by KellyClarksonFan — January 24, 2004 @ 8:01 pm
what a load of intellectual rubbish! Each country got automatic top votes for the simple fact of patriotism – can you imagine how easily Kelly Clarkson would have walked it with the sheer weight of American voters? I think the voting system was fair, although I had wondered who would be bothered voting at the time. Since World Idol I have purchased Kurt’s album internationally and can say it is a fine piece of work. His songwriting is very emotional and clever and his voice is definately world class.
This political theorizing is just codswallop.
Comment by donna — February 18, 2004 @ 1:26 pm