The British Pop Idol Show Created the Template That all its Imitators Followed

Added: 01/19/2006

There were several seasons of British Pop Idol show which showed many talented people. And all the British Pop Idol show winners became very popular. But what is more interesting about British Pop Idol show is that it led to a beginning of similar shows in many different countries. Soon after the original version American Idol, Canadian Idol and Australian Idol shows followed, and all were huge hits. In fact, American Pop Idol is so popular that it shows no signs of slowing down.

Pop Idol is a world known British Television show (in fact, it is a series of television shows because there were two seasons and one additional version). British Pop Idol show was meant to be a talent contest to find new young artists in the United Kingdom. But there also was a detail that differed British Pop Idol show from regular talent contest and probably it was that detail that attracted so big audience. British Pop Idol show along with traditional format of talent contest included elements of reality show. And different kinds of reality show indeed attract many people these days. And many people think that this was a key element of British Pop Idol show success.

The Pop Idol show was produced by Simon Fuller - a very successful music impresario who was a manager of "Spice Girls". Being a sort of reality show, the British Pop Idol show included high level of interactivity. Viewers of the show could vote for their favorite contesters by the phone or through the internet. In February 2002, the British Pop Idol show made a record - it collected probably the biggest number of votes in a single night. That proves the enormous popularity of this show but it also made this show one of the most profitable on television. Different similar shows that followed the British Pop Idol show in the United Kingdom and Worldwide used even bigger number of interactive communication mean such as SMS messages of mobile phone and so-called "Red" button of digital television. All the techniques allowed increasing the revenue of the show even more.

Judges of the British Pop Idol show were Simon Cowell, Pete Waterman, Nicki Chapman and Neil "Dr" Fox. And judgment was pretty tough for many contestants. Some of them had heard a lot of criticism especially from Simon Cowell. At first judges managed to perform auditions for a huge number of contestants and choose about 50 singers. And out of this group only ten became finalists (viewers votes were used on that stage of the Pop Idol show). And each one of these ten finalists then had an opportunity to perform live. After that viewers were voting for several hours by phone. And so the winner was chosen.

The second season was not that popular as the first one and so there were no new seasons. But in many other countries Television channels thought about British Pop Idol show popularity so different national Pop Idol shows started to appear in different countries. The most known show is probably American Idol. And in December 2003, even an international version of Pop Idol called World Idol was made. Eleven countries took part in this competition. Viewers from all these countries were allowed to vote by phone - the winner of World Idol was Kurt Nilsen from Norway.

As for the British Pop Idol show winners - that was Will Young in the first season of British pop idol show (Gareth Gates took the second play in that season). And in the second season the winner was Michelle McManus with Mark Rhodes being the second one. But in fact, not only finalists and winners but all the contesters of this super popular show became very popular. So, just participating in the British Pop Idol show was a big success.

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