American Idle's Phoney Hype

Yes, I admit it. I watch American Idol. I have for the past few years.

Tonight on the elimination show, they revealed that the national audience voted to drop Jessica Sanchez. This was significant since Sanchez was generally regarded as one of the top contenders - if not the best of the remaining 7. I picked her out, a few weeks ago, to be the eventual winner.

With the current rules, the person with the fewest votes gets to "sing for their life" on the show. The judges get one opportunity to "save" a contestant from elimination. The vote must be unamious.

Tonight, as Sanchez was singing, all three judges left their seats and surrounded Sanchez on the stage and hugged her and admonished the TV audience for not voting to keep her in the competition. They voted to "save" her.

What we really saw was BS. I don't, for a minute, think that Sanchez received the lowest number of votes. This was a staged attempt to get people to vote. It was a dramatic effort to get people talking about the show. IT WAS ABOUT RATINGS. That's all. It was a cheap show business trick. Yes, they got me to take a few minutes to talk about it....but it was cheap, nonetheless.

Apparently, ratings are more important to American Idol than credibility.

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