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The problem with Super Sundays

Australian Idol's unofficial new starting time is now 7:59 -that's when the first singer took to the stage last night.

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aissIt was 7:59 when we heard the first solo song on Australian Idol last night.

Before that we’d had 29 minutes of introducing judges, chatting to the Glee cast, having a cross-promo group performance by the Top 11, a recap of last week’s Top 11, the announcement of the bottom 3, discussion of the bottom 3, announcing the bottom 2, a farewell package of the eliminated singer (Casey Barnes), an introduction to guest judge Brian McFadden and a package of the first singer, Sabrina, before she finally took to the stage.

Phew!

And this is a Super-Sunday? Could we please go back to ordinary-run-of-the-mill Sundays?

If Idol wants to drive viewers into the show, it might consider getting into the performances a whole lot quicker.

In fact the entire principle of eliminating a singer at the top of the show is perlexing. If my favourite singer is dumped right off the bat, why would I keep watching? If it were shifted to the end of the show, maybe I would keep watching to see if they made it through, and hey, I might even stick around to watch Rove while I’m at it.

Eliminating at the end of a show works perfectly well for Dancing with the Stars and even It Takes Two. Otherwise maybe we should all start thinking of Idol as an 8pm start?

Last night’s Idol also came close to creating controversy, first with Jay Dee Springbett’s comments about an 18yo contestant’s physique (well they told him not be boring, right?) and Dicko suggesting an 18yo celebrate his feminine side and camp it up. Just what he’d want to hear on national television?

38 Responses

  3. i don’t understand why most reality shows need to be hours long every week, like tobey said the networks should also find out what people think of a program, just cause people watched a show doesn’t mean weren’t bored will doing so.

  4. Not to mention, it took over 29mins to get a performance from the Top10.. After thier last performance.. it was upto 10mins in Over-Run.. which was a pathetic move by Ch10 on all Counts! and they paid for it when the ratings were released overnight.

    Last Week> 990k
    Last Night> 976k (down 14k)

  5. Also the amount of ads that are shown during idol is just pathetic. I understand the ads pay for the show but when they put them in 5 minute blocks you loose concentration on the actual show. keep it to 3 mins maximum.

  7. Dicko asked Nathan to explore his camp side; he never implied he was gay. I think most people would infer from Dicko’s comments last night that he is gay, but in a TV Week interview, he did say he wasn’t gay and he has a girlfriend.

  8. I have to say that the new Idol format is totally rubbish. Having a contestant eliminated at the top of the show put’s the whole thing on a downer. I don’t know what was wrong with Monday night elimination except for the fact it was long and drawn out (read- boring). This could be easily remedied with a half hour show (Not a 47 min show, thank you Ten but half an hour).
    These are all thing that so called “television programmers” should be able to work out. They should be looking at blog sites to find out what people are actually thinking rather than just relying on the ratings.
    Sadly, I think the demise of Idol in Australia can’t come soon enough.

  9. I always found it odd eliminating at the start of the show, how hard would it be for the contestants having to learn a new track not knowing if they will even get to sing that night or not.

    The show is as good as dead anyways which is a shame, although I did enjoy the little dig at Damien Leith re the weekend newspaper article on being poor after winning the show.

  11. And ten wasted advertising during shows such as the simpsons with a 27 second pop up telling us to watch super sunday (for the record- I didn’t watch any of ten on sunday)

  13. I actually like the UK model with these shows, they have the performance show in the early evening, then have a different show for 60 mins and return for a 30 min results show based on that nights peformances. As for the young, camp 18 year old, Suzy Quatro referred to still ‘getting to know’ and ‘discovering himself’ a few times, not that sexuality should matter.

  14. At 8.30pm I moved from Ch7 to Ch10 to watch what was left of the top 10.
    I can’t even bring myself to be kind !! The show was just abominable and slow with enough ads to put you to sleep.

    I saw & agree with – Quote from David ” “Jay Dee Springbett’s comments about an 18yo contestant’s physique (well they told him not be boring, right?) and Dicko suggesting an 18yo celebrate his feminine side and camp it up. Just what he’d want to hear on national television?””

    IMHO the 18yr old Dicko told to ‘camp it up’ can’t sing and was out of tune.
    …..stupid comment from Dicko however.
    The other guy they suggested was boring, was again IMHO very good…..
    I won’t be watching again as obviously I know zilch about music etc……..

  15. I agree David. Dicko was out of line re his comments to Nathan. He may not feel comfortable having this aired on national television. Toby was also asked if he were straight. Is it really for us to know?

  16. Jaydee was not making a comment about the contestants physique, but rather his fitness level. A.K.A. being able to run around the stage and sing at the same time.

  17. I think you raise an incredibly valid point, but I don’t think eliminations at the end of the show would work… They would need to re-jig the voting process again to only allow people to vote from the end of the show (or after the elimination).

    I think in the ideal world, the show, voting and subsequent elimination would all take place on a Sunday… But alas – we have a country where in a few weeks Perth will be three hours behind the eastern states…

    I think it’s been interesting to see some comments (from my friends on Twitter) about Dicko’s comments about camping it up. I don’t think that contestants have made any secrets homosexuality (but I won’t say names just in case!) – and I think Dicko encouraging him to be his camp, usual self on TV is refreshing.

  18. I made refrence to that on the Australian Idol forum last night, No One would talk to me amount of time wasting before the New set of performances last night, also at the half way point… they did more time wasting..

  19. Yeh I totally agree, i watched 60minutes to see the Latoya Jackson interview, than flipped to Idol at about 8.10 To my supirse at the end, i realised i only missed Sabrina sing and saw the other nine. Basically i missed 30mins of fluffy crap. Booting the contestant at end, also means they’llget to sing the song they practiced all week

  20. The show has lost momentum. Maybe it even needs to go back to the monday night eliminations. Even on a Monday night you had small packages to get to know the singers, now there is noe of that.

    But I agree, the singing starts too late.

    Its getting boring.

  21. They made a minor change from last week by not having the eliminated contestant re-sing their losing song. Thank heavens for small mercies. Still not good enough. The whole new format is stuffed.

  23. Disgraceful time wasting by the Idol producers, no wonder the show is on life support at the moment. Move the elimation to the end of the show, for goodness sake!

  24. Everyone in my house was yawning and wishing it was over at about 9. Seems the problem isn’t its starting time. It’s its length in general. The ratings will tell the story but i’m guessing the average over the two hours will be decreased due to a fatigue switch off around 9.

    Idol needs to get rid of contestants as quickly as it was inducting them during the semi finals (two minutes into the show) and get on with it.

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