The only question surrounding Fremantle Media's decision to stream episodes of American Idol on their website is, "Duh... what took you so long?" Given the ridiculous ratings, and the fact that just about every performance was available on YouTube anyway, it's something they should have been doing a long time ago. But better late than never I suppose. Fans will be able to watch entire episodes on the website, after they air, sponsored by McDonalds and MasterCard. Individual performances will also be available on phones to Cingular customers. Adage.com has an article that gets into some of the crazy numbers surrounding Idol. For example, the show is now valued at $2.5 billion as a franchise. It also brings in $500 million in TV ad dollars. Last season the show received 570 million votes and 65 million text messages. And the site attracted 40 million unique visitors.
This news is also good for Fox, who produces the American Idol website in a revenue sharing agreement. Freemantle had been approached by "a major portal" that wanted to host the site and they considered taking it away from Fox. The show premieres January 16th with a two hour episode.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-08-2007 @ 6:48PM
TomB said...
Sure, streaming Idol on the internet is a great idea, but if they put commercials into the streams, count me out (not that I'd watch anyway).
I refuse to watch streaming ads on internet video. I never watch AOL's videos for that reason. I can't be the only one that feels this way.
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1-10-2007 @ 2:17PM
Endurer said...
Wow thats big money. Lets see what Simon has got for us in stock, this AI season. I am excited actually because we are going to get American Idol LIVE on television here in Pakistan.
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1-26-2007 @ 10:54PM
Rachel said...
When are the episodes going to be put online? I couldn't watch last night's Memphis auditions, and I can't find the episode anywhere on the fox website, the myspace page for fox shows, or fremantle media's website.
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