Unit 4

Before there was Singapore Idol, there was Talentime, our very own homegrown reality contest where singing talents are sought out, crowned and groomed afterwards. It had a very simple format, the contestants just had to go onto stage, perform a song of their choice and the judges will judge on their performance. That was way back in 2001 and the winner was Cherry Chocolate Candy.

Fast forward to 2004, Singapore Idol was announced and aired over local television. It is a spin off from the Idol series, the most popular being the American Idol. What has started as a small reality television competition to find new solo singing talent has  since undergone horizontal expansion and is now a global name with at least 50% of the world having their own versions of Idol contests. Although the original idea started off as a British television series, it has since been popularised by the American spin-off which is American Idol. There is no denying the fact that with the series now showing in many countries, American culture is slowly seeping into their communities and changing their way of life, no matter how small it may seem.

Take Singapore Idol for example, the show's format follows that closely of the American Idol's. There are three judges and at least one of them have a caustic and blunt attitude towards the contestants and gives very "mean" comments on their performances. It seems as though they are trying to fit in a Simon Cowell. Even the types of songs used are mostly American songs. SMSes and phonelines votings are also used for voting for the audiences' favourite contestants. There is no doubt that Singapore Idol has become a large part of our lives especially during the first season when a lot of people tuned in and owing to that, there are a large handful who went on to follow American Idol as well and even keeping track of their winners as well.

If the show is slowly eroding some of our culture and introducing American's, why do people still tune in then? Well, a simple explanation for this would be the uses and gratification theory. What this means is that people follow the series as it represent a potential means of gratification for a basic human need - entertainment. That is right, for entertainment and owing to U.S big brother image, anything that comes from them must be good. It also happens that they are one of the world's largest exporter of media products with many buyers from all over the world.

American culture has inevitably seeped into our culture with most of our media products coming from them or inspired by them such as English language dramas and variety series. Another example would be "Just For Laughs Gags Asia". In the past, we had a similar show called "Gotcha". Most of the English songs and music that we hear are also sang by American artistes and even the usage of American English has slowly crept into our country, much to the dismay of educators because we are still a very strictly British English only country.

There is no denying the fact that U.S.A will continue to be the world's largest exporter of media products for years to come and people all over the world will be influenced by them. Meanwhile, I will continue to stick to my fare of local productions, while awaiting the return of Talentime to replace Singapore Idol and indulging in the occasional foreign media productions.