The Scandals That Destroyed American Idol

on May 20th 2009 the world realized American Idol was rigged text gate was the name of the infamous voting Scandal led by employees at at T who created Power Techs from demo phones that allowed individuals to vote for contestant Chris Allen up to 10 000 times while Chris Allen was a very talented singer it was obvious throughout the whole season that Adam Lambert the runner-up was crushing the competition now once throughout the entire season did the judges criticize his singing since it was near perfect some even suggest that his performance of mad world is the best in American Idol history but when Adam lost in the finale to Chris it started to raise suspicion but what was uncovered would lead to American Idol's demise viewership dropping by the millions and fans losing trust in the brand forever now you're probably thinking that the fans were just upset that their favorite singer didn't win the competition and that they are unreasonably outraged and while some of that may be true at T admitted that their employees did manipulate some votes but they vehemently denied this had an impact on the final outcome at T was one of the largest corporate sponsors and the communications partner for American Idol they set up the voting Gateway for fans to be able to send a text message to an abbreviated number such as idols01 so the viewers determined who moved forward in the competition they also had the ability to call an 866 phone number and vote online however the text in voting was the most popular method since 2003. every single year there were claims that the votes were unfair such as in season 4 where three of the contestants had their numbers mixed up with the wrong numbers appearing on the screen resulting in millions of votes being voided or even earlier in season 8 where the number Idols 13 was owned by a company called intimate encounters who used the number as a sex hotline imagine all those people accidentally texting a sex hotline but season 8 was the first time where there was an admission of Foul Play Chris Allen was from Conway Arkansas and had the entire State rooting for him to win during the night of the finale watch parties were organized where up to 2 000 people attended a few employees a t got caught up in the enthusiasm of the competition and brought demo phones to the parties and provided texting tutorials to those who were interested basically these employees taught people how to send power texts where each person could vote for Chris 10 times with the Press of one button however one voter Bobby quierna confessed to voting for Chris Allen 10 840 times in an at T texting Zone that had been set up there however at T tried to reinsure that this fraudulent activity did not impact the outcome because it was quote quite a leap to suggest that a few individuals could have impacted the final results and the television network Fox was absolutely certain that the results of this competition are fair accurate and verified this begs the question how can you be certain the competition results are fair when at T admitted there was a manipulation in the votes despite Chris Allen winning Adam Lambert would go on to have a much more successful music career as he has now earned the honor of replacing Freddie Mercury as the new front man of of Queen the fifth highest selling band of all time but we probably should have seen texsgate coming because a few years earlier the votes were manipulated to purposely get a bad singer further along in the competition but before we get into the next Scandal allow me to introduce scentbird who were generous enough to sponsor this video scentbird is your One-Stop shop to discover explore and learn about scents just for you scentbird is a fragrance subscription service with a mission to empower each and every person to express themselves through scent scentbird carries Brands like Prada Gucci Versace as well as Indie labels like Skyler heretic and confessions of rebel I like something that 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sponsoring this video check out the links below this is Sanjaya malakar one of the most controversial American Idol contestants in history Sanjaya was a 17 year old kid from Seattle that had a loving personality and a decent voice can't blame you but I just keep trying most of you might be thinking his singing isn't that bad and it really isn't especially compared to the industry standard today but for American Idol a show dedicated to discovering the best talent the country has to offer people thought he didn't even come close and the fact that he made it all the way to the top seven finalists indicated that there was something suspicious going on a website called vote for the worst was created in the early 2000s and gained a lot of popularity during season three of American Idol it was essentially a blog or Forum dedicated to mobilizing idle fans to vote for the worst person every week with the ultimate goal of the winner being a mediocre or bad singer their first Target was Antonella Barba they went as far as leaking racy photos of her to bring traffic to the site a low blow for sure however she ended up getting voted off so their troll campaign was no longer successful and in 2019 she got sentenced to 45 months in federal prison for possessing 400 grams of fentanyl with the intent to distribute it she even tried to reduce her sentence in court with the argument that being voted off American Idol was the reason she spiraled out of control anyways after being unsuccessful with Antonella Sanjaya became the fan favorite or I guess the least favorite because he was often the person they were voting for as the worst Simon Cowell was notoriously not a fan of Sanjaya but the general American public thought he was sweet and lovable they even made iconic memes about Sanjaya when I admire D through cancer the controversy around him turned his supporters into Die Hard fans and turned his Ops into massive haters make sure you're drinking water Howard Stern even praised the vote for the worst website which brought it to much bigger Heights shock jock Howard Stern is plugging a website called vote for the worst.com hyping Sanjaya as a way of discrediting American Idol the site was getting around four to five million viewers each week earning them some mainstream coverage as a website and they're they're voting for the worst contestant on American Idol how they're doing it that's right now there is no concrete proof that this website was manipulating votes but the massive amount of traffic the site was getting each week could suggest that they had some influence even the creator of the website Dave de la terza was interviewed on national news I don't know that we're trying to rig the process but what we're trying to do is say you know this isn't a legitimate Talent competition they're trying to make good reality TV so why don't we try to keep around someone that's bad and try to keep them around help them win because it'll make the show better to watch now Dave raises the age-old old question do your votes matter the only evidence people use is when a contestant seems to be popular on the internet and in the news but then gets voted off or when a contestant is generally disliked but advances which obviously isn't a strong argument six nine has nine million monthly listeners on Spotify but everyone hates him clearly not everyone hates him because a lot of people are still listening to his music my point is that the general public perception has little to do with the actual American Idol voting data especially when they don't even show what the real data is there is no live tracker there is no formal voting report that is released you just have to trust that they are doing the right thing and the person with the least votes is the one who gets eliminated plus you have to consider that plenty of the artists that lost would go on to be wildly successful Chris Daughtry finished fourth in 2006 and would go on to sell 21 million records Tori Kelly didn't even make it past the second round and went four times Platinum later Lauren Elena was runner-up in 2011 and went 11 times platinum in fact out of the top 10 most successful American Idol contestants six of them didn't even win the competition however there's another way to analyze this that may prove the votes are actually choosing the winner but the people voting might be the problem the wgwg controversy stands for white guy with guitar from 2007 to 2012 the winner of American Idol was a white guy with a basic white guy image who loved to play the guitar a darker Theory suggests the show is racist and is promoting an agenda but the viewership was declining by the millions year after year during the wgwg era it doesn't seem likely that the producers and investors would keep the agenda going if it was hurting the show's reach especially considering that the first six winners of American Idol were unpredictable diverse and led to the show growing in viewership every year season 7 was the first wgwg winner which was the first time they ever saw viewership Decline and it steadily kept dropping from there Ken Warwick producer of the show explain the reasoning it's no secret grit that most reality shows are female driven either by moms or by young girls it does mean we're going to get a heftier amount of female votes obviously we are very much aware that the voting can be skewed towards the boys but it's not just because of their gender but their personality and potentially their looks you have this alliance between young girls and grandmas and they see it not necessarily as a contest to create a pop star competing on the Contemporary radio but as who's the nicest guy in a popularity contest in short the winners are disproportionately chosen by Suburban moms and young girls because they like the show the most the predictability of the winner may have led to a huge average viewership drop from 25 million in season 10 to 18 million in season 11 but after the five-year wgwg streak Candice Glover would go on to win season 12 of American Idol however the viewership dropped again from that 18 million average to 15 million and it just kept going down keep in mind this was also in 2013 where the social media takeover was about to destroy TV ratings entirely it's most likely that the voting process Falls somewhere in the middle millions of people choose who they want the show producers use the votes to determine who the most popular singers are Advance those people at the top then eliminate one from the bottom few based on what will make for the most entertaining outcome all voting shows like American Idol The X Factor the voice So You Think You Can Dance usually have the same overarching issue it's not necessarily about talent but producing the most entertaining show however this is about as close to the real world as it gets how often do the most talented people become the most successful the most talented singers actors hell even government officials are not always the ones who become the most successful Talent is definitely important but branding relatability and overall entertainment value is what people are drawn to the most the chances of American Idol being just another scripted reality TV show where the votes don't count and producers pick the winner are very high and maybe the decline in viewership was simply due to the death of TV and birth of social media in the end the viewers get to discover their new favorite singer winning the competition does get you an immediate prize but the platform and exposure is the most valuable part and what you do with that exposure is on you

Channel: Patrick Cc:

Views: 1,628,819

Keywords: patrickcc, patrickcctv, patrick cc, patrick Cc:, american idol 2022, american idol worst auditions, downfall of american idol, american idol scandal, american idol scandal 2022, sanjaya american idol, sanjaya malakar, text gate scandal, text gate, american idol rigged, american idol voting, american idol winners, american idol losers who made it big, most famous american idol winners, american idol controversy, is american idol, is american idol fake

Id: gZPvWlTIaH8

Length: 11min 19sec (679 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 28 2022