X-Factor and hybrid programmes...

Variety programmes have always been popular on Saturday night TV and live music has always been a part of the Saturday evening schedules, whether as part of a talent contest, or on a chat show, or game show.

In recent years, the talent contest format has become increasingly popular, starting with Pop Idol and then Fame Academy but more recently the most popular programme on Saturday night TV has been, X-Factor.

These programmes are a hybrid of reality TV and variety. The producers want us to get to know the performers, creating a level of personal identity and helping us to form personal relationships by having our say on who is likable, mature, stupid, quality, weak etc.

The relationship with the audience is integral to programmes like X-Factor. The live audience in the studio play a huge role in creating a lively partisan atmosphere and they form a relationship with the contestants and judges, booing, cheering, reacting to key words, dancing, crying, putting their thumbs up or down in a symbolic gesture, in a similar way to an audience watching a pantomime.

The audience at home get to play a part in the outcome of each show, voting to change the ending but never the narrative. We learn to love or loathe the contestants, as we enter on a journey into their past. (Most have had some kind of terrible accident happen to them, or their family and some are even single parents, or are the offspring of single parents! The horror, the shame, the bravery to survive such terrifying circumstances, please pick up on the irony in this rant.) We are told about their hopes for the future. (All have only ever wanted to be a singer, from the moment they took the shape of a foetus in the womb, it's their dream, their need, they will not survive if they do not succeed) We are exposed to their everyday turmoil as they expose to us the problems of, having to learn how to murder another song, a bout of tears, a promise to raise their game. We are asked, with the help of some stirring non-diagetic music and a powerful voice-over explaining to us that this contestant is overcoming all the odds after their tragic pigeon incident last year, to identify with these contestants.

Watch and weep....


And then, come the judges, think about the very word! They have the power to elevate contestants above the average person, even if, especially if they are only have an average voice(not that this is the case with King Leon, or is it?) or they have the power to sentence them to a life of under-achieving, even though they have such a unique talent, or as some of us call it a life sentence in the real world.

Have a look st this clip, as the Caesars are introduced to the crowd at the Colosseum..........


Ask yourself...

Who is the hero/villain/damsel-in-distress?
This can apply to the judges and the contestants, the roles change regularly. Leon went form the damsel-in-distress, to the hero and did you know he was from a single parent family? I'm not sure he mentions it very often.....

PLODCAMEDLEG is once again a good starting point for analysing this style of programme, you should know it by now + don't forget, the uses and gratification theory....

Surveillance:
We want to know what is going on the contestants lives, we may even log onto the website to see what kind of a week they are having. We want to know about their family, or lack of one, their hopes, their aspirations(I reckon I could take a wild guess at what they are!)

Diversion:
We want to step away form our own sensible, real, grounded lives and enter the world of humiliation, disillusion, entertainment, pantomime.


Personal Relationships:
We just love to have an opinion on who's hot and who's not.(Of course I have no opinion, as you can tell from this blog) We love to talk to our friends about what we have seen, what we think.(Who are the judges now?) We love to watch with other people and pronounce our hatred, our disgust for these vile, putrid, pointless characters. (That might just be me then..) Or of course declare our love; our backing' our whole hearted support for these contestants living the dream. We may even join a fan club or write comments on a blog, or discuss why we fancy Leon, or Simon Cowell(just me again) on MSN.

Personal Identity:
We may even, heaven forbid, identify with the contestants, their problems, their attempts at trying to reach notes that are beyond them.(I was once involved in an incident with a pigeon) We do after all want to be famous, want a recording contract, want to sing in front of thousands of people (My aspirations began when I started to use the umbilical chord as a microphone). We all want to be a celebrity and earn, sorry, I mean have lots of money, we all want to have a string of hit albums and prove that nasty Simon Cowell wrong, we all want our five minutes of fame, don't we?