•American Idol's sixth season has been its worst

<TABLE style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px; WIDTH: 575px" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 4px">The American Idol final four Jordin Sparks, from left, LaKisha Jones, Blake Lewis and Melinda Doolittle don't seem to have much of a stage presence.
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May 8, 2007, 12:45AM
Choose the best of the most boring
American Idol's sixth season has been its worst

By ANDREW DANSBY
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
<!-- rbox goes here --><!-- rbox ends here --><!-- Mille Photo Reference Type: image ID: DONTKNOW Width: 150 Credit: FRANK MICELOTTA FOX | ASSOCIATED PRESS Caption: THE BORING FOUR The American Idol final four Jordin Sparks, from left, LaKisha Jones, Blake Lewis and Melinda Doolittle don't seem to have much of a stage presence. end of Photo -->You might not know it from listening to American Idol's raving judges or the weekly voting tallies, but this season is the show's worst since 2004. For proof, check out its Final Four — Melinda Doolittle, Blake Lewis, Jordin Sparks and LaKisha Jones, the most boring quartet since Fantasia Barrino stomped all over Diana DeGarmo, Jasmine Trias and LaToya London.
That's not even taking into account the grueling Idol Gives Back (from whom did it take?) or the parade of awful mentors making promotional appearances (J-Lo, Gwen Stefani, Jon Bon Jovi).
As with any great TV show, Idol is reliant on strong characters, and this year's frontline cast looks and sounds more like extras.
But this is the final four we were dealt, and there's always next season. So here are some thoughts on who might win Idol's sixth (and worst) season, though none of these four is poised for stardom like former champs Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson and former also-ran Chris Daughtry.

Melinda Doolittle

• In her favor: A gigantic but very skilled voice. She shows more control and restraint than singers (we won't name names) currently making millions.
• Not in her favor: There's still a little of the modest, "who me?" thing, which has been annoying for weeks.
• What makes her (not) interesting: She's a backup singer!
• Our odds: Even. Jordin or Blake could pull an upset, but Melinda has been the one to beat since the show's first round. Maybe earlier.

Jordin Sparks

• In her favor: Good voice, sometimes. It should be said that looks can matter, and she's the prettiest of the final four.
• Not in her favor: Melinda, who has more control over her voice.
• What makes her (not) interesting: She's 17!
• Our odds: 3-2. It all depends on her songs. She's not as crafty as Blake, not as consistent as Melinda and not as capable of rafter rattling as LaKisha. But when she's on, which is often, she's good enough to win.

Blake Lewis

• In his favor: As the judges have told us time and again, he's different. (So was Scott Savol.)
• Not in his favor: his Elmo-esque "ballad face." His overused dance spin. He likes (and covers) middling bands.
• What makes him (not) interesting: He beatboxes!
• Our odds: 2-1. He has an arsenal of smoke and mirrors to distract people from a mediocre voice. He's easily the worst singer of the four, but it might not matter.

LaKisha Jones

• In her favor: When she gets into her gospel-tinged upper register, she can belt it out.
• Not in her favor: Melinda and Jordin, both of whom have been consistently better.
• What makes her interesting: She has a kid!
• Our odds: 10-1. This could be 100-1 too. Barring death or laryngitis striking one of the other three, she'll go home this week.

American Idol's performance show airs at 7 p.m. May 8. Barry Gibb, who actually does know how to create a pop song, is this week's mentor. One of the final four will be eliminated on Wednesday's show, at 8 p.m. Idol airs on Fox/Channel 26.
andrew.dansby@chron.com

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yes to me it is the most boring and with the group wow can you say ugly and no sex appeal.......ck they would have to pay me to go see anyone left live and then im not sure if i would go.......ck

I would have to agree this group was awful...how can they not find 5-6 hot females with booming voices out there? These are not future pop icons.

Journeyman said:

I would have to agree this group was awful...how can they not find 5-6 hot females with booming voices out there? These are not future pop icons.

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They tried to push the hot girls through (see Anabella and Haley) but they couldn't really sing.

Agreed that this is the worst year yet.

No hot guys, either.

i give Simon 1 more season and imo he will gone from the show......ck

carolinakid said:

i give Simon 1 more season and imo he will gone from the show......ck

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Doesn't he own the show?

carolinakid said:

i give Simon 1 more season and imo he will gone from the show......ck

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he's partial owner of the show or has some sort of stake in it

not to mention, he is by far the most respected judge, and love him or hate him america loves and respects his opinions as he brings accurate critique that anyone can relate to

Simon Cowell IS American Idol

yes Simon own the show,what i meant imo he will step down as judge and be more in the producing from the sidelines..ck

This is the first year I've watched it that I've had to keep asking my wife what everyone's name is. No one memorable enough. Jordin is cute but I probably wouldn't have remembered her name if she wasn't the daughter of Philippi Sparks.

The final 4 is boring, but this is the only season that I have actually watched! Almost twice as many viewers are watching this season

ever since Carrie Underpants...ie Underwood..(and yes she gives me wood, for the record)...sang...there is NO OTHER.....

she got-it go-in-on :smoker2: ope: :banger:

playersonly69 said:

The final 4 is boring, but this is the only season that I have actually watched! Almost twice as many viewers are watching this season

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Where Have the TV Viewers Gone?

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
Tuesday, May 8, 2007

(05-08) 13:36 PDT New York (AP) --
Maybe they're outside in the garden. They could be playing softball. Or perhaps they're just plain bored.

In TV's worst spring in recent memory, an alarming number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.

Everyone has a theory to explain the plummeting ratings: early Daylight Savings Time, more reruns, bad shows, more shows being recorded or downloaded or streamed.

Scariest of all for the networks, however, is the idea that many people are now making their own television schedules. The industry isn't fully equipped to keep track of them, and as a result the networks are scrambling to hold on to the nearly $8.8 billion they collected during last spring's ad-buying season.

"This may be the spring where we see a radical shift in the way the culture thinks of watching TV," said Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the Web site Television Without Pity.

The viewer plunge couldn't have come at a worse time for the networks — next week they will showcase their fall schedules to advertisers in the annual "up front" presentations.

The networks argue that viewership is changing, not necessarily declining. Some advertisers respond that they are no longer willing to pay full price up front to reach viewers that may not tune in later.

This fall, both sides will be watching what happens with families like Tony Cort's. During prime-time, Cort, his wife and four kids tend to scatter to computers or other activities in different parts of their New Jersey home. (Not during "American Idol" or "Lost," though.) They're definitely watching less TV, said Cort, who runs a Web site for martial arts aficionados.

"I remember when `24' was on, that was something there was a lot of interest and excitement about," he said.

News flash: "24" is still on. Its ratings are down, too, amid a critically savaged season.

More bad news abounds. NBC set a record last month for its least-watched week during the past 20 years, and maybe ever — then broke it a week later. This is the least popular season ever for CBS'"Survivor." ABC's "Lost" has lost nearly half its live audience — more than 10 million people — from the days it was a sensation. "The Sopranos" is ending on HBO, and the response is a collective yawn.

Events like "American Idol" on Fox (which is owned by News Corp.) and "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC (owned by The Walt Disney Co.) are doing the most to prop up the industry. But still, in the six weeks after Daylight Savings Time started in early March, prime-time viewership for the four biggest broadcast networks was down to 37.6 million people, from 40.3 million during the same period in 2006, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Millions of missing viewers could translate into millions of missing dollars for the networks heading into the up-front sales season.

Advertisers don't believe that the drop in viewership is as dramatic as the numbers suggest, but they're no longer willing to spend what they once did in the spring market, said Brad Adgate of Horizon Media, an ad buying firm. Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola sat out the spring market last year — betting they could get lower prices later — and it's likely other companies will do the same this year, he said.

The early start to Daylight Savings Time has hurt ratings. Prime-time viewership traditionally dips then as people do more things outside, and this year folks had a three-week head start to get into the habit of doing something else. More network reruns during March and April dampened interest, too.

"We let them get out of the habit of watching television a little bit, and it's going to take some time to get these people back in front of their television sets," said David Poltrack, chief researcher for CBS (owned by CBS Corp.).

Strategic decisions to send some popular serial dramas on long hiatuses appeared to backfire. NBC's "Heroes," CBS'"Jericho" and "Lost" lost significant momentum when they returned. Besides HBO's "The Sopranos," there are no lengthy countdowns toward the end of very popular series, unless you count "The King of Queens."

There also are technical reasons that this apparent diminished interest in television may be overstated.

This year, for the first time, Nielsen is measuring viewership in the estimated 17 percent of homes with digital video recorders. Since last year's Nielsen sample contained no DVR homes and this year's sample does, logic dictates that fewer Nielsen families are watching TV live this year, deflating ratings.

If you recorded "Desperate Housewives" this spring and watched it more than 24 hours later, you're not counted in the show's ratings. Same thing if you bought a copy of a show on iTunes and watched it on your iPod or cell phone, or streamed an episode from a network Web site.

"People are not consuming less television, they're watching it in different ways, and the measurements haven't caught up," said Alan Wurtzel, chief research executive at NBC (owned by General Electric Co.).

The numbers can be significant. When "The Office" aired on NBC on April 5, Nielsen said there were 5.8 million people watching. Add in the people who recorded the episode and watched it within the next week, and viewership swelled to 7.6 million, a 32 percent increase, Nielsen said.

"The Sopranos" is another interesting case study. For its first four episodes this season, the show averaged 7.4 million viewers for its weekly Sunday night premiere, down from 8.9 million at the same point its last season.

But HBO shows each new episode eight times a week. Between the multiple plays and DVR viewing, each episode this spring gets 11.1 million viewers, down from 13 million last year. And these figures don't count people who watch on demand.

Numbers for "The Sopranos" may be down because people can watch whenever they want. They may not be as interested in the show as they used to be — or it could be a combination of both.

Television has made billions based on how many people watch a show at its regular time. That idea may already be obsolete. So should the industry use DVR viewing when setting ad rates? If so, how quickly must people watch the shows — within two days? A week? What about people who watch shows on their cell phones or on network Web sites, which Nielsen doesn't measure yet? Later this month Nielsen will begin measuring how many people watch commercials. Should those be used to compute advertising costs?

Right now, none of those questions have answers.

However, "if we continue to do business assuming people will watch television as they always have," said NBC's Wurtzel, "it's a dead-end game."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/05/08/entertainment/e133646D41.DTL
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carolinakid said:

yes Simon own the show,what i meant imo he will step down as judge and be more in the producing from the sidelines..ck

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I will bet you $10,000 bucks that does not happen.

Simon is only leaving for 2 reasons:

1)HE DIES
2)The show goes off the air.

xpanda said:

They tried to push the hot girls through (see Anabella and Haley) but they couldn't really sing.

Agreed that this is the worst year yet.

No hot guys, either.

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I'm not saying Melinda can't sing, she's been pretty flawless throughout,I just wouldn't be interested in her...she doesn't have star appeal IMO.and the bee bop guy with the dramatic faces, he's very good at what he is, I just can't see himdoing much else...

BTW what happened to Taylor WHO? :ughhh:

Blake has got to be dancing.

Only male left to grab all the young ladies votes.


Oh....and add white:lol:

Jordin is the one who would have the best POP career. You would hear her on the radio unlike Rueben, Fantasia, and Taylor.

Rawpimple said:

Jordin is the one who would have the best POP career. You would hear her on the radio unlike Rueben, Fantasia, and Taylor.

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Its boring because there is only 1 real POP singer left that you would hear on the radio. Jordin is pretty bad ass. This girl will be a star.

Rawpimple did you just quote yourself praising Jordin in order to agree with yourself and praise Jordin some more?

Rawpimple are you Jordin?

<TABLE class=text id=Table1 width="95%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=bottom>Disco Downer as Top Four Contestants on ‘American Idol’ Disappoint



</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>Monroe, Ga. 5/9/2007 2:44 PM GMT (FINDITT) After last night ‘American Idol’ producers may want to rethink Disco Night for future competitions. There’s something depressing about hearing the top four ‘Idol’ hopefuls struggle through a catalog of Bee Gees hits not once, but twice. Is “singing” disco really a prerequisite to selling millions of records? If so ‘American Idol’ may have another Taylor Hicks on their hands as each contestant did their part to bury disco a little deeper in the musical graveyard.
Melinda Doolittle did little with her two song set and she’s the frontrunner. In a competition where she’s had one off night she stumbled twice with “Love You Inside and Out” and “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” Simon likened her first performance to that of a backup vocalist while even Paula alluded to the fact that she was not impressed. The saddest part about the night was Doolittle was probably the best of the four.
It was fitting for LaKisha Jones to sing “Stayin’ Alive” but after her rendition her ‘Idol’ life appeared to be on life-support. It’s hard to hear that song and get depressed (other than for the obvious reasons, such as its 2007 why am I trying to relive the 70s) but LaKisha sounded as if she was competing in ‘Emo Idol’ and may have earned a spot on the next Fall Out Boy album. Her second song choice was “Run to Me” and without a knockout performance Jones finds herself in serious danger of departure.
Jones may have been saved by the equally awful performances of Blake Lewis. When a record or cd skips the owner usually throws the thing in the trash. Why Blake continues to think people would buy an album of a defective sound is a true mystery. Not to say his style isn’t inventive or that it lacks skill, but who really wants to listen to 60 minutes of that. If I want to hear drums I’ll listen to a drummer, not some guy that makes a tom-tom sound with his mouth. Lewis won no praise for his rendition of “You Should Be Dancing” with Randy going as far as calling it corny. Blake’s second song “This is Where I Came In” left people scratching their heads once again. People blasted Sanjaya for not being able to sing but Blake didn’t prove himself to be any better on Tuesday night.
Jordin Sparks was probably on par with Doolittle when it came to performances. Sparks managed to get through “When You Love Somebody” and when Paula called it the best vocal performance of the night (up to that point) she wasn’t really saying much. Her second song “Woman in Love” seemed to impress Barry Gibb, leading him to say she may become one of the greatest female recording artists, but whatever Gibb said seems to go out the window, he’s the one responsible for the music being sung.
Based on the performances from last night the curtain may be closing on the Blake Lewis show. When it comes down to it LaKisha is a stronger singer and has proven it, Lewis has never really wowed anybody with his vocal range. But this is ‘American Idol’ and more than likely it will be LaKisha that gets sent home as Blake has a strong 10-year-old fan base that actually wants to listen to somebody imitate a record player and a broken needle.
www.finditt.com

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by the way


what the fuck happened to the billboard top 100 the normally do

:think2:

I think every single theme has been some old genre except the Gwen Steff week.

The winner will be expected to sing a current style of song:WTF: