Going a bit of rant, so bear with me!!!

What is the point for the following shows?:

- American Idol

- X Factor

- America's Got Talent

- The Voice

Or whatever other inane voice competition they come up with, but the point remains, the contestants come on stage, butcher a classic from Al Green, Aretha, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Mike Jackson, etc., and get to the next round because the judges feel they have "got [insert some ridiculous adjective here]" despite the fact they sounded like constipated banshees. Don't even get me started on "Rappers" who make it past the first round

Subsequent rounds follow, the judges tell the contestants to "make the song their own" and it is kinda hard to do since they didn't write the song or even sing it very well, thus making the entire performance a karaoke experience!!!

Bravo's Platinum Hit was rather interesting as it had a multitude of songwriters and musicians in a face to face competition, it was a breath of fresh air.

If the stream of voice compeition shows continue, what would be some variation you'd like to see?

I don't watch those shows,either.I have never even seen an episode of American Idol and I don't plan to.Never understood people's fascination with those shows

I didn't even watch American Idol to see Prince's performance a few years ago.

Angie Miller on American Idol reminds me of Sponge Bob Square Pants.

gdiminished said:

Going a bit of rant, so bear with me!!!

What is the point for the following shows?:

- American Idol

- X Factor

- America's Got Talent

- The Voice

Exactly !

The original point of those shows (besides the fact the networks were looking for a cheap way to create a TV show that would hopefully generate a lot of ad revenue for them) was to find the next big pop superstar. And early on it worked pretty well (Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, Jennifer Hudson). But success led to a lot of copycatting, which led to a glut of these programs being on the air. In order to differentiate themselves, they used a bunch of gimmicks which took away from the orignal purpose of the program, which led to viewer apathy and reduced TV ratings. Since season five, the ratings for American Idol have been going downward, and they began accelerating downward at a faster pace since season nine, especially since the rise of copycat shows like America's Got Talent, The X Factor, and The Voice, not to mention related talent shows like Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance, which have also seen rapidly declining ratings.

TV programming tends to go in cycles, which usually leads to a some show becoming a huge it, which spawns imitators, only to create a glut of shows that bring down everything in that genre. Just as The Cosby Show helped spawn the likes of Who's The Boss, Growing Pains, Major Dad, and a bunch of pale and failed imitations, Friends spawned the likes of Ellen and a bunch of failed imitations, as well as second and third generation copycats (How I Met Your Mother, New Girl), and the original reality game show success of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire spawned a bunch of knockoffs (Greed, 21, Deal or No Deal, 1 vs. 100), and the initial success of Temptation Island led to a deluge of dating reality shows (The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire, Blind Date, Elimidate, Average Joe, Age of Love, VH1's Flavor of Love and related series), the talent shows are just the latest trend to be copied and run into the ground. And even that has gotten old, as the latest trend is cooking shows.

[Edited 3/5/13 19:50pm]