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Buying into American Idol

Remaking Television Culture How We Are Being Sold on Reality Television

Henry Jenkins
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Second Edition
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Who would have predicated that reality television series, such as Sur­
vivor (2000) and American Idol (2002), would turn out to be the first
killer applications of media convergence-the big new thing that dem­
EDITED BY onstrated the power that lurks at the intersection between old and new
media? Initial experiments with interactive television in the mid-199os
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., Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette were largely written off as failures. Most people didn' t want to stop
watching television just to buy the clothes one of the Friends (1994)
was wearing. Few were interested in trivia quizzes flashing up at the
bottom of the screen during sportscasts or James Bond movies. Critics
argued that most of us simply wanted to sit back and watch televi­
sion rather than interact with it. The current success of reality televi­
sion is forcing the media industry to rethink some of those assump­
tions. The shift is one from real-time interaction toward asynchronous
participation.
Few can argue with American Idol's success. By the final weeks of its
second season in 2003, FOX Broadcasting Company was receiving more
than 20 million telephone calls or text messages per episode, casting ver­
dicts on the American Idol contestants.' This made the phone companies
happy because they have been trying to find a way to get Americans more
excited about text messaging, which hasn't taken off in the United States
the way it has in Asia and northern Europe. Of the 140 million mobile
phones in the United States today, only 27 million are being used for text
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS messaging.2 AT&T Wireless reported that roughly one-third of those who
participated in American Idol through text messaging had never sent a
NEW YORK AND LONDON
text message before.3 As an AT&T spokesman explained, "Our venture

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