Question: Why did the producers of American Idol choose to exclude the western half of the country from selecting the winner? Last year they ran the show in real time, as well as repeating in prime time, but this year by the time the show aired in the Pacific and Mountain time zones, the live telecast was over. This was unfair to the finalists and to the viewers—hardly the way to run a final vote. —Nancy
Matt Roush: So much about this final season of Idol was unorthodox and, by necessity, anticlimactic. Even the winner, Just Sam (who smartly performed “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You),” the hit from Idol‘s season one champ Kelly Clarkson), barely got to react before it was over. And it’s hard to imagine what ABC had going on in the afternoon hours (West Coast and Mountain times) on Sunday that would preclude them from airing the finale live to all time zones. Turns out, though, that Idol did have a mechanism for fans to weigh in on performances through the show’s YouTube channel, where the songs were apparently posted after they aired, and voters in all time zones could participate in the vote even if they weren’t seeing it live on their TV. (Would have been nice if the show had publicized this more; I didn’t know about it until I did a little research after the fact.) The last thing a show like this needs is a charge of voter suppression.
To submit questions to TV Critic Matt Roush, go to: tvinsider.com