What a scam and crock. American Idol in conjunction with FOX is using the current week of their cash cow show to "give back" and raise money for charity.
Oh, how sweet of them. How generous of them. How great of them to do these things.
My *censored*!!!
Give back, how about giving some money for each and every one of those calls and text message votes that you receive, rather than putting caps on the amount of money the mothership network will donate?
How about doing something I long ago suggested: put a small cost on each and every vote that is received so that the teeny bobbers and old ladies that are voting for their favorites are donating money each and every time the vote is taken? How about, again, doing as I suggested and putting that money towards the Mr. Holland's opus fund, or some similar effort that would raise money to put towards music and the arts in schools and for younger people?!?
AT&T (formerly Cingular, formerly AT&T) makes money on the text messaging that happens, and AT&T provides phone services for the voting. Not for free, as they have traded these services for consideration as a sponsor of Idol. They get their name prominently mentioned on each and every Idol show. On the web site, on the network's web site, etc. It is worth millions in advertisements and promotional effort to them.
Where are they each week, and not just the one week that the people behind Idol try to make what they are doing on this one special occassion a great thing?
Where is FOX, who makes tons of money in advertising fees for all of the commercials that they run incessantly when Idol is on?
Where is FORD, who runs tons of advertisements and gets tons of mentions and "face time" each time the show airs?
All of these sponsors, the producers, the network, etc., should have been working together to use their silly popularity contest to do good long ago, not just now.
I agree with Washington Post TV reporter Lisa de Moraes, who I heard on Tony Kornheiser's radio show on Washington Post Radio today (Wednesday, 4/25/2007), the whole thing is a pile of crap and just more feel good TV that is supposed to guilt the audience into donating money to causes. Good causes I am sure, but causes that all of the participants (not the contestants on Idol, but the producers, the judges, the network, the sponsors, etc.) could easily have helped a long time ago.
See de Moraes' comments in her Post column here: Give Back My 'Idol' (note that link is date sensitive for the article. If you visit the original article later you may have to scroll down to find the original comments)
