Pop Idol

Contents

Host

Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly

Co-hosts

Judges: Simon Cowell, Pete Waterman, Dr Fox and Nicki Chapman

Broadcast

ITV1/2, 2001-3

Synopsis

A light-entertainment talent contest rehash that quit whilst it was ahead. The thing that (almost) saves it is that it will be rehashed again in the future.

The two-headed presenting monster Antan Dec laughs at stupid auditionees then charges extortionate phone rates to vote off the least bad of the final 10 contestants. Voting people off on a weekly basis suddenly became cool, and any light entertainment formats that didn't employ this concept from that point onwards were immediately prohibited by state law.

To be fair, this wasn't bad. A good 10 million persons were transfixed, and it's fairly obvious that this show set the audition-and-vote theme in motion. The replications to which we've been treated since now stretch to such themes as politics, cookery, ballroom dancing and bouncing pens off heads. Ant and Dec were good at what they did (and ITV say they still are), and the judges bickered upon request, which is also now law.

One trend that this show still didn't manage to break was the immediate disappearance of most of its finalists and champions, with the notable exception of Will Young, who still proceeds to torture us all to this very day.

Includes World Idol.

Winners

2002: Will Young
2003: Michelle McManus

Inventor

Simon Fuller

Theme Tune

Credited to Cathy Dennis.

Web links

Off the Telly review

Off the Telly review

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