Tuesday, February 27, 2007

PR Assignment: American Idol and Social Darwinism

Bill Carter of the New York Times just wrote this article about the strength of "American Idol" in the television market.

His question is whether or not it's alright for a single media to have so much power. After all other networks have completely changed their programming in order to avoid being squashed by this giant.

It is a pertinent question because the show now runs three times a week for a total of five hours and other networks can no longer schedule their hit shows around it like they have in the past.

I don't watch "American Idol" but I've seen it a few times and I don't really understand why 30 million people would watch it three times a week.

In general I believe in Social Darwinism when it comes to this kind of thing. But I also recognize when that things can get out of hand and there are points when the government needs to step in and disregard laissez-faire.

This is not one of those times.

While Carter brings up some good points, the situation is not nearly as scary as he makes it out to be.

It's a show about people singing, it's not 1984.

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