American Idol: Lack of Screen Time = Lack of Votes

The age old debate of whether the lack of screen time affecting people's voting practices is raging yet again this season on American Idol. Former Idol contestant, Kimberly Caldwell, on the most recent episode of TV Guide Channels Idol Wrap, said that she feels that the voters will remember the contestants that get featured more during audition and Hollywood rounds and vote for them above others.

I have to agree with Caldwell, and for the most part it has already been proven with the first two groups of American Idol Top 36 contestants. If you look at who got the most screen during the first two rounds, then look at who made it through, you will see a lot of similarities. For instance, Danny Gokey was featured quite a bit because of his personal tragedy, yet his first live performance wasn't that great and he made it sailing through. Michael Sarver, as well, was featured quite a bit because of being a blue collar oil rig worker and he made it through on a weak performance. Alexis Grace even got quite a bit of screen time as well, due to her story of being a 21 year old single mother.

Out of group 2 of American Idol's top 36, Kris Allen was the only one that went through that didn't get a lot of screen time, but Simon did tell him that the ladies were going to love him. Apparently, they do love him. Enough to get him more votes than Nick Mitchell who had far more screen time than anyone else. I think, in Mitchell's case, however, he got too much screen time acting a fool, rather than trying to be a serious singing competitor and the fans got sick of it. Honestly, he made a mockery of the show, much the way William Hung did and American Idol fans had their say.

What is the difference in getting screen time and not getting screen time? When you get screen time, people hear your personal story more than the other American Idol contestants. The big deal about this is that people can identify with their stories and feel like they really know the contestants, so they feel more compelled to vote for them. Does it make it a bad thing to show the more compelling stories? Not at all, but they need to be more fair about giving everyone their due. Perhaps once Idol executives and Fox will sit down and look at this season and learn for next year.

Until then, continue to tune in every Tuesday and Wednesday to see what's going to come next. One more group for the viewers to vote through then we have the judges favorites. It should make a nice mix for the top 12.