American Idol Observations

TWIT would like to congratulate Taylor Hicks on becoming the next American Idol.  Hicks beat out California girl Katherine McPhee on another hype-filled season of "American Idol."  I'll admit that I'm not a huge "American Idol" fan fan, but I always try to catch at least the last 5 minutes of each episode just to see who got booted.  And I never miss the final episode, either.  Each year, the "American Idol" finale gets bigger and better.  As with the previous four seasons, the "American Idol" producers decided to allow over two hours (yes, over two hours - the show ran two hours and six minutes) for a show in which the sole objective -- announcing the winner's name -- took about two seconds.

I heard some very interesting trivia about last night's finale.  Over 64 million people voted after Tuesday night's episode.  More people voted for who they think should be the next American Idol than they did in voting in our country's last presidential election.  Do you think this means that people care more about who's going to be recording a record and going on a concert tour than they are about who's going go be running our country?  I did some quick research online, and discovered something very intriguing.  A marketing research company conducted a poll among "American Idol" votores, and they voters believe that their vote counts as much as or more than their vote for president. Wow.  I guess the voters take it personally.  They vote faithfully each week, based on how the performers did.  If one of the performers really screwed up, the voters aren't going to vote for them.  The ones that received the least amount of votes and who were lucky enough not to get the boot will make a change in song selection or style, and will take action to make sure they receive votes in the next week's round.  The "American Idol" voters see the performers make corrections based on their votes. Maybe they don’t see that with our elected officials.