Daily Times

The 16th season of hit American Idol premiered on American network ABC on Sunday after its previous broadcaster FOX had canceled it and called the 15th season to be last. However, after a two-year gap and a network switch, the show has resurrected – with new judges Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie and of course our favourite; the roaring Katy Perry.

With huge popularity and fan following, the show became a cult and launched careers of singers like Carrie Underwood (season 4, winner), Kelly Clarkson (season 1, winner), Chris Daughtry (season 5, 4th place) and Clay Aiken (season 2, runner-up) who ended up selling millions of copies of their labels. The Idol franchise owing to the success of the American Idol launched in several countries across the world.

The sudden ‘death’ of the show 2 years ago left everyone in shock. I mean how could an original show that inspired so many rival franchise shows such as the X-Factor and The Voice could be doing so bad that the network had to bid it farewell after 15 successful seasons.

After months of build-up on social media, the show was off to a solid start gathering 2.3 rating among the advertiser-desired demographic of adults under 50. Even though this is being viewed as an achievement, this still is the lowest an Idol premiere has garnered

For an unprecedented eight consecutive years, either a performance or the results show had been in the number one in TV rating – until 2011 that is.

After that, the show saw its rating drop and has tried different things including bringing in big names like Mariah Careyand Jennifer Lopez as the judges but the show didn’t seem to be able to bring its gloss back.

From the 12th season onwards, the ratings really plummeted and the network couldn’t get it back and eventually decided to cancel the show – a move which sparked emotions among the alumni, former judges and fans of the show.

The analysts and critics said that the rise of music launch on social media platforms have a huge role to play. Gems like Carrie Underwood were discovered through the American Idol but now stars are discovered through social media platforms like YouTube and digital launches of songs. The iconic British singer Justin Bieber was discovered through YouTube and Canadian starwas discovered through Vine.

The fresh talent is turning to social media to launch their careers, bypassing the TV medium. Not to mention the hefty process of registration, waiting for turns and standing in queues.

So, could FOX really get into the talent-launching war with the social media? The plummeting rating indicated that the viewers don’t think so. Thus, the show was ended in 2016 only to be resurrected by a rival network ABC, which had a little different strategy in mind. That’s right, a new judges’ panel isn’t the only thing new about the show. There’s a stark improvement in show’s digital media presence as well. The show currently has a website along with a very active and impressively maintained presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

This time, their social media platforms are not just posting the teasers but also the actual web exclusive clips that built all the hype leading up to the launch of the season 16 on March the 11th.

And the verdict is also in. After months of build-up on social media, the show was off to a solid start gathering 2.3 rating among the advertiser-desired demographic of adults under 50. Even though this is being viewed as great, this still is the lowest an Idol premiere has garnered.

What the future holds for the American Idol and whether or not the digital media will continue to over-power reality singing shows in launching singers? Even though there’s a clear writing on the wall, it still is too soon to tell.

The writer is the Digital Editor, Daily Times and can be reached at me@farhanjanjua.com. He tweets and instagrams @FarhanJanjua

Published in Daily Times, March 14^th 2018.