Thursday, June 01, 2006
American Idol Epilogue
byIn a post last week, I mentioned that in spite of all the competition from the Web and other entertainment sources, TV still has the ability to concentrate some large audiences. The finales of American Idol and Lost were cases in point.
A new CNN story this morning highlights how that huge American Idol audience translated into a win for Fox in the rating point war.
The story points out that Fox seems to have a great handle on its strategy as it rolled out the second season premiere of its summertime hit, ”So You think You Can Dance” the night after the last American Idol show of the season. The show was watched by 10.7 million viewers—not bad for summer programming.
Fox also gets the whole promo integration thing. There will be strong interactive and mobile tie-ins that help bring the television content to life. In addition, there will be live voting to add a real-time interactivity element (more info here).
There are a lot of smart people in the television industry and plenty of money riding on getting results. Many of those smart people are figuring out how television will have to evolve to remain a top venue for in-home entertainment.
