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From Interruption to Engagement |
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Pop Idol - American Idol
A cross-platform brand as entertainment, creating multiple revenue streamsThis summer sees the start of the second series of smash-hit reality entertainment show Pop Idol that launches on ITV1 link! in the UK on 9th August [adjust for time 2003 or 2004, has this already happened?]. Expect entertaining and excruciatingly embarrassing auditions and plenty of sarcastic and scathing put-downs as over 20,000 wannabes perform, shedding blood, sweat and plenty of tears in front of the infamous panel of expert judges; Simon Cowell, Nicki Chapman, Neil Fox and Pete Waterman. Viewer's favourites, Ant & Dec, return as hosts, and will be there every step of the way from the highs and lows of the auditions through to the laughter and tears of the final 50, whose fate lies in the viewer’s hands in the final live shows. O2 has announced that it would provide a range of interactive mobile services for the second series of Pop Idol, which launched on ITV1 in the UK, August 9th 2003. O2 has already had phenomenal success in delivering groundbreaking interactive mobile services for shows such as Big Brother and Popstars: The Rivals. In the latest series of Big Brother, 1.5 million fans used their mobile to interact with the show, an increase of 25% on the previous year. O2 will work with FremantleMedia (who Co-own the Idols format with 19TV and whose UK production company, Thames Television, is Cob-producing Pop Idol with 19TV) to provide a range of services including:
In addition, O2 will bring fans exclusive content via its dedicated mobile Pop Idol web site and the O2 WAP service specially designed to promote Pop Idol services. O2 customers will be able to access Pop Idol using O2 Active, a branded, colour icon menu service that offers new and existing customers a simple means to access and navigate its growing range of mobile data and multimedia services. Laurence Alexander, Product Director at O2 UK said: “We have helped change the way people watch TV, turning it into a two-way interactive experience for millions of viewers. This trend will continue as we learn from our experiences and increase the range of services on offer this year. Viewers will be able to have even more interaction and really feel a part of the programme.” Simon Spalding, CEO at Fremantle Media Licensing Worldwide, said: With such a popular show that enjoys a huge amount of audience participation, any solution we use for text-voting and other mobile powered activities such as quizzes and games needs to be robust and reliable. O2 is the clear leader in this area and we can trust that they really know what they are doing. This is why we chose to work with them for the new series of Pop Idol. Pop Idol applications will also be developed by O2's Revolution service, Europe’s biggest channel for mobile application developers. Applications from Revolution will be promoted on the Pop Idol web and WAP portals, giving developers direct association with the Pop Idol brand. Attic Media and ITV ITV has announced its biggest ever interactive service, launching alongside the new series of Pop Idol on 9th August. The interactive services, which will be available on digital satellite, will include an interactive voting facility in addition to the usual premium-rate phone number, SMS, and Internet voting facilities. Pop Idol Interactive will be available by pressing the red button while the programme is transmitted on ITV1 and ITV2. Two Way TV developed and built the application for ITV from designs by Attic Media. In-between shows, the service will be accessible via ITVi, a new 24-hour interactive service. Attic also created the popidoltv.com website, where users can vote or buy a range of branded items from the online shop, including karaoke equipment and even a Pop Idol fragrance. Jane Marshall, ITV Interactive Controller, said: Our new service will be easy to use and give fans as much Pop Idol information as they could want or need, at any time of day. Voting will be simple, and viewers don't have to leave their sofas or miss any of the show, as well as enjoying all the extra games whenever they want to. POP Idol is set to make a massive £122 million profit for ITV. They will net more than £100 million from ad revenues over its 20-week run, with £7m more for the final alone. Food giant Nestle is paying £6m, the highest ever sponsors' deal in TV history. Marketing chiefs expect £5m from phone and text votes, £2m from a magazine and the rest from merchandising. Financial Success The following snippets provide some information on the subject: Pop Idol, which spawned Gareth Gates and Will Young in Britain, is by far the biggest money spinner fuller has dreamt up so far. The programme starts a second run this August, while the US version is in its third series. It has generated $500m of advertising revenue for Fox, the American TV company that bought the US rights. Advisers to the programme believe Pop Idol is likely to be worth up to £70m by the time television, recording and other performance rights have been exploited around the world. Cost of sponsorship revenue Pop Idol's creator, Simon Fuller, stands to make at least £10m from the sale of the smash hit television format to the US. And when revenue from sponsorship, phone lines for voting, and royalties from the star created by the show are added to the format fee, the former Spice Girls manager and owner of Pop Idol producer 19 TV could make three times that amount in the US alone. Fox will buy a minimum of 15 - and possibly up to 20 - episodes of Pop Idol, paying a format fee of around £700,000 for each and netting 19 TV at least £10.5m in the process. Other revenues from the show, including sponsorship and revenues from voting lines phoned by fans could bring in another £14m. Mr Fuller and Lythgoe are also in talks with broadcasters in a number of other countries and more Pop Idol format deals are expected to follow the US signing. How many people text voted in the final show? How many people voted via email? Almost 9m people voted in Saturday's event, making it Britain's biggest ever TV poll, according to the organiser, Telescope UK. There were a few difficulties, such as engaged lines due to the sheer volume of calls, but this made no difference to the result, said the Telescope chief executive, Edward Boddington. Mr. Boddington claimed the ITV1 competition had been a "huge success" as 8.7m viewers voted in just over three hours. The company ran 28,000 telephone lines using a state-of-the-art system from BT, which has previously been used for Stars in Their Eyes and Big Brother. At the poll's peak, 1m people were telephoning in their votes every minute. How much money was generated by text voting? Voting is expected to generate at least £2.5m, which is split between BT, which takes 36 per cent, 19 Management that takes 19.2 per cent or £440,000, as does its partner Thames TV, and the ITV network. How many single and album sales for Will Young?
According to Fabmobile, Gareth Gates has now sold over 1.1 million copies of his debut single Unchained Melody and is the youngest British male solo artist to get to number one in the UK. American Idol During American Idol, more than 7.5 milliom American-Idol texts were sent during the contest and a third of the senders had never texted before. The final was the largest single text-messaging event handled by a mobile phone carrier in the world. Source: RocSearch & The Financial Times Creative Business 29 July 2003. |
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