Singing contest vs. Popularity Contest

So if you watched American Idol in the last few weeks, you will have noticed the interesting eliminations from the competition. There were several departures which seemed like a surprise on the surface, but really aren't.

The show is billed as a singing competition, and the judges all have track-records in various parts of the music industry, either as performer or producer. But in the end, it's not the best singer that wins, it's the most marketable singer that wins. And how marketable one is, depends only in part on the singing abilities. Another huge element is stage presence, and compatibility with current social dynamics in the audience.

For example it's a surprise that Sanjaya made it to the top 12. His performances as they reduced it from 24 to 12 contestants were not very strong. In one of them he was barely audible over the music, has very little stage presence. But he's also still very young, at 17 the personality and self-confidence with which one presents in such environments is rarely fully developed. So the only explanation is that he resonates very well with a significant segment of the audience, who votes for him and keeps him in the running. Being the only contestant from an ethnic group with a significant population in the US undoubtedly will give him an advantage over a similar skilled main-stream contestant.

The same goes with music choices. The week before Leslie Hunt got voted off, in some part because as Jazz singer she represents a musical genre that is overall less main-stream, and in particular with the demographics watching American Idol.

That leaves one last element of the numbers game open: if there are two or more contestants are from the same fringe group they actually hurt their chances of advancing, as there will be a limited pool of votes to support them, which gets split among them. That leaves each individual contestant from this group a smaller vote count, and the risk of going home. We'll likely see a little bit of that between Melinda and Lakisha.

So why is the current format of the show good, and why don't the producers change it? Well, keep in mind what the primary purpose is for Simon Fuller, the producer of the show, and his backers. While they get paid handsomely for the #1 rated show on American TV, what they're really looking for is the next marketable singer, who will rake in award after award, will take their albums to multi-platinum, and so on, like Carrie Underwood. That's where the real money is. And the best way to find out which candidate has this type of appeal is to test him/her with the audience. That's exactly what the current format accomplishes. First the judges weed out the non-singers and non-starters during the audition weeks. Then during the competition the ones that have proven that they have a voice, will get market tested extensively. And the ones that get voted off even though they can sing well, just don't have the commercial success potential than the ones who stay. So Paula may make a show of being surprised who gets voted off, but in the end it makes total sense. Now one caution the producers have to keep in mind - as the show continues to grow as a reality-TV phenomenon, and continues to attract more votes every week than our presidential election gets, there is the risk that the voting pool extends beyond the commercial music buyer and into a cultural competition. Once that happens, the viewer vote is less of a commercial success indicator, and they may get a wrong positive. But hey, they still make lots of money doing the show, so it will only influence how rich they get, not whether they succeed or fail.

On that topic - there are actually very cool ways of measuring a contestants chances. If you have access to Hitwise search intelligence data, you can get a glimpse on the popularity of certain contestants in a very large and unbiased data sample. In general the number of times people search on the Internet for a specific contestant is directly linked to the number of people likely to vote for this contestant. Some publicly available blog posts from Hitwise Analysts - one on Antonella Barba from season 6, and one on the prediction of the season 5 winner.

Update from 3/15: Another week, another poor performance by Sanjaya, and another week he staid. I think the politicatians can take a lesson in get the vote out from him.

Oprah's golden touch

Oprah's book club always creates a wind-fall for the author and the publisher. It's almost a given that the book will become #1 on the Amazon book's top seller list.

So when Oprah a few weeks ago brought up a book out of cycle, it made yet another instant winner: The Secret. And that it happened on a non-book club recommendation shows just that it has nothing to do with the book club, but just the power for Oprah's endorsement of a book creates so much visibility, buzz and momentum, and also disables every one's bs-detector where they critically look at the book before purchasing it.

So my family followed the herd effect and we also ended up with a copy of the book. I read the first chapter and put it down, couldn't take anymore. The underlying premise of the book, to think positive, to have dreams of what your goals and aspirations are, to not limit them by the nay-sayers around you, and give it a shot, and you may find yourself surprised on how much you can achieve, is certainly valid and good advise. It's also good to have somebody say this to you every so often, as we tend to get beaten down by the everyday crap that happens. But the way it was presented in the book just repelled me. It sounded too much like a religious cult trying to brainwash me.

While there's a law of gravity, which formulates the force with which two physical objects pull on each other, and what keeps the Earth on a rotation around the Sun, the concept of thoughts being magnetic, and having frequencies is so far from any physical foundation it makes my hair stand up.

Sure, when I was a kid, have I ever wondered if other people could read my thoughts, which I didn't want to share, whether there was telepathy of thinking? Yes, actually I did. But as I learned more about the physics and natural sciences, that quickly faded away.

And thoughts cannot become things, if you just think hard enough about them. If you aspire to do something that is a clear stretch goal for you, but you work hard and diligently for it, there are many stretch goals which become achievable. But not by thinking about them, but by thinking about what I need to do, to make it happen. If I never think about it, I will never try, and sure, then things won't happen on their own.

But back to Oprah - she does many good things, and she has helped probably millions of women have better lives. But with this golden touch, also comes a huge responsibility. People will check many of their bs-detectors at the door to the show, and it's Oprah's responsibility to be careful what she endorses, as it can also have huge negative influences if something like The Secret is taken to seriously as a result.