American Idol sings its swan song: Pioneering music competition will call it quits after 15th season citing flagging ratings

[flowers]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3076666/Last-season-American-Idol-set-Foxs-2015-16-lineup.html

    Fox's Idol all but invented the music competition show in the early years of reality TV, but has been surpassed in its own genre
    The Voice has tapped into the younger audiences Idol once boasted, winning the key network demo for NBC for the second year

[ABX]

After about season 4, it became boring and repetitive. It is also a nightmare for music teachers when you get diva parents coming in insisting their kid is the next Idol and demanding perfection right out of the bat. We've seen a big influx of diva parents each time a season is announced, especially a couple of weeks before there is a casting call within 500 miles of us.

[flowers]

After about season 4, it became boring and repetitive. It is also a nightmare for music teachers when you get diva parents coming in insisting their kid is the next Idol and demanding perfection right out of the bat. We've seen a big influx of diva parents each time a season is announced, especially a couple of weeks before there is a casting call within 500 miles of us.

I quit watching some time ago. I disliked the drama stories when they picked a singer.

[ABX]

I quit watching some time ago. I disliked the drama stories when they picked a singer.

The big frustrating thing was learning how staged it was. Of course, like all reality shows, it is staged, but usually the winner or final 10 were all picked long before casting began by talent agents and managers. At the Dallas audition about 5-6 years ago, my wife had a student go and she described how there were two lines, one for the general peons and one where professionals with their agents were pushed ahead. Most people got less than a minute to sing before a panel (not the actual judges), but the ones who actually went to the judges and then to Hollywood were the ones with agents or hand picked characters. The ones with the biggest 'sob' stories were usually represented by agents long before the audition and the sob stories were scripted. 

[flowers]

The big frustrating thing was learning how staged it was. Of course, like all reality shows, it is staged, but usually the winner or final 10 were all picked long before casting began by talent agents and managers. At the Dallas audition about 5-6 years ago, my wife had a student go and she described how there were two lines, one for the general peons and one where professionals with their agents were pushed ahead. Most people got less than a minute to sing before a panel (not the actual judges), but the ones who actually went to the judges and then to Hollywood were the ones with agents or hand picked characters. The ones with the biggest 'sob' stories were usually represented by agents long before the audition and the sob stories were scripted.

Interesting. Not very surprising. Just hated the 'sob' stories.

[jmyrlefuller]

The big frustrating thing was learning how staged it was. Of course, like all reality shows, it is staged, but usually the winner or final 10 were all picked long before casting began by talent agents and managers. At the Dallas audition about 5-6 years ago, my wife had a student go and she described how there were two lines, one for the general peons and one where professionals with their agents were pushed ahead. Most people got less than a minute to sing before a panel (not the actual judges), but the ones who actually went to the judges and then to Hollywood were the ones with agents or hand picked characters. The ones with the biggest 'sob' stories were usually represented by agents long before the audition and the sob stories were scripted.

It doesn't surprise me.

I had a friend of mine try out for that show in its earliest days. She got a very similar treatment to the one you describe: singing for a panel that wasn't the judges, then ultimately rejected. Now, secondhand word at the time was that she tried to use the national anthem as her audition song and that she bombed when trying anything else. I don't know if that was true (we didn't really get to know each other until a few years later), but that would be consistent with her experience.

I had a few people suggest I try out. I am pretty musically inclined, but I never took it seriously. Nor have I ever actually watched the show; I don't plan on watching it, either.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Interesting. Not very surprising. Just hated the 'sob' stories.

I waned to try out as he closeted heterosexual child of minority deaf mute transgender lesbians, but I couldn't come up with an appropriate song for the audition.

[mystery-ak]

I waned to try out as he closeted heterosexual child of minority deaf mute transgender lesbians, but I couldn't come up with an appropriate song for the audition.

Oh Boy!...I see this thread heading in a totally different direction...lol