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Not that Fuller is stepping off the TV money train just yet. A new American Idol series will make its debut Jan. 21 on Fox. More than 50,000 wannabes tried out; 234 were shipped to Los Angeles for further auditions, and 32 made the cut. Fuller has a $15 million--plus deal with ABC for a show to air in March called All American Girl, which will feature a contest of women ages 18 to 25 who can sing, dance, play sports and display some knowledge of the world. "If Idol reinvented the talent show," Fuller says, "then All American Girl will reinvent the beauty pageant." (He has also persuaded NBC to feature four fresh goofballs in an updated version of the 1960s concocted-pop-band sitcom hit The Monkees. The New Monkees is scheduled to air in September.)
Earlier this month, the winner and the runner-up from the first American Idol series, Texan Kelly Clarkson and Pennsylvanian Justin Guarini, started filming an American Idol movie, a romantic comedy written by Fuller's brother Kim. The working title is To Justin from Kelly. We predict that Ben Affleck and J. Lo have nothing to worry about, but, hey, who knows?
How did we get here? Like any virulently successful media life-form, reality TV has mutated into an array of species. It evolved from such primitive organisms as America's Funniest Home Videos, reached a Darwinian plateau with "watch and dial" shows like Big Brother, in which viewers voted by phone to evict or endorse roommates, and morphed into such elaborate creatures as Frontier House, a reality time-travel show in which families spent months living in the conditions of a bygone era. Proof that anything goes is The Osbournes--the verite look at the domestic life of aging rocker Ozzy Osbourne--and The Anna Nicole Show, which will remain undescribed here. "Reality TV has become a staple, just like drama and comedy," says Mike Darnell, executive vice president of special programming at Fox.
Music-based reality shows emerged in most markets in 2001, with Europe's Popstars and Fame Academy--the latter produced by the Dutch program developer Endemol Entertainment, which also created Big Brother. The formats differed slightly; the aim of Popstars was to assemble a band, while Pop Idol crowned an individual. Winners got record contracts, and some of their songs enjoyed startling success. Pop Idol winner Will Young's debut release, the double-A-side single Evergreen/Anything Is Possible, became Britain's fastest-selling single ever. Kelly Clarkson's single Before Your Love/A Moment Like This reached No. 1 on the U.S. charts.
Although most reality shows--not just Simon Fuller's--do well initially, ratings have become erratic. The 2002 season of Big Brother attracted a large audience in Britain, but the French version drew only 4.6 million telephone votes, against 22.5 million for 2001. In Spain Fame Academy--Operacion Triunfo--continues to pull in high ratings, but the British version was so poorly received that wags dubbed it Lame Academy. "For a while, any reality show was going to get viewed," says Darnell, "but now people will become more discerning."