Weaver's Week 2009-11-15

It's hard to remember now, but there was a very short-lived revival of traditional variety shows in the year 2000. At one point in the early spring, three of the terrestrial television channels – BBC1, ITV, and Channel 5 – were all putting out showcases of unknown acts in primetime. It's as if the commissioners had collectively regressed to 1970, and no-one had told them that Life on Mars wasn't due for seven years. This old-fashioned approach was blown out of the water in the opening week of 2001, when Popstars (ITV, 2001-2) arrived on the scene.

The basic idea of Popstars was simple: make a pop group on national television, and because the show will attract ten million viewers, they'll become stars overnight. At least, that was the theory according to Nigel Lythgoe. He'd seen the original Australian production, followed their band soar to stardom, and needed a television network and a record company to play ball. ITV came on board quickly, but Lythgoe shopped the idea around the record companies all summer before Universal and Simon Fuller said they'd work with the winners.

The fabulous five were named. Noel, Kym, Myleene, Danny, and Suzanne became Hear'Say, became the ITV house band, and became instant stars overnight. Around this point, Popstars morphed from a documentary exposing the manufacture of a band into a show about the television exposure gained by the band formed on television. "Pop will eat itself" proclaimed one band in the 1980s: here was an oroboros of television eating pop eating television eating pop... Hear'Say's first single was released a month after the group had been formed, and sold half a million copies in the first week. The series ended with the news that not only were they number one in the chart, they were the fastest-selling debut act ever in the history of ever, and they all lived happily ever afterwards.

Well, no, they didn't. Hear'Say had been put together to fill a particular brief – young, look good, taught how to dance and how to handle the press, but the music came a long way down their priorities. The group sold more singles in their first seven days than they would in the rest of their career, one member left in early 2002, and the band imploded after just eighteen months. It didn't matter, because Britain had replaced its clapped-out old pop stars with shiny new pop idols.

Stylistic changes were evident from the start: rather than the anonymous voice-over of Popstars, host Antan Dec was waiting backstage to cheer on the auditionees, and congratulate / commiserate after they'd performed. That the viewers had a representative in the room made it far less intrusive to see dreams being shattered, one of the more awkward moments of Popstars. The performances were all solo efforts – none of the mass choir singing of "Angels", this was a million solo renditions of the same song.

After about a month of this, 50 would-be idols remained. Over the space of five weeks, they performed a solo piece with piano for public approval. Rather than have the pop panel put their preferred singers through, the viewing public called up and did the job for them. Then a run of nine live shows from mid-December until the final in February saw one person's dream shattered each week. The stories captured the national imagination – the illness and forced elimination of Rik Waller, the amazingly difficult choice of Abba songs, the way it appeared the show was being built up to promote Gareth "The Anointed One" Gates, the bizarre decision to play big band standards and a version of "Mack the knife" that killed Gareth's ambitions dead. Pop Idol captured the national imagination, and made for outstanding television.

In fact, perhaps the only loser was Kate Thornton, clearly out of her depth while hosting the Pop Idol Extra show on ITV2. Three hours a day of it! Three hours a day of her! Digital channels have gone on to fill out their schedules with extra transmissions – Fame Academy on BBC Choice and CBBC, X Factor on ITV2, Strictly on BBC2, Dancing on Ice's spin-off eventually turning up on the main ITV channel. All of the shows were two minutes of actual content inflated to fill half-an-hour of screen time.

The Popstars format came back in autumn 2002 with Popstars: The Rivals, in which Pete Waterman and Louis Walsh were invited to create their own groups, albeit with the line-ups dictated by a public vote. Geri Halliwell added her experience of being in a manufactured band, Davina McCall shouted at the contestants to stay on their marks, and the whole series could adequately be summarised by any one of the interchangeable live shows, featuring interchangeable performers. After the groups were set, the final winners would be determined by the record-buying public, who would purchase the singles of Walsh's group (Girls Aloud) or Waterman's group (er, erm, One True Voice) and whichever became the Christmas number one would win. Hopes that the contest would be won by The Cheeky Girls (rejected at the audition, but first to release their single) were dashed, and Girls Aloud went on to launch a glittering career with their repertoire of about three songs.

Would we be so royally rewarded in the next series? Er, no. The series began with some sing-off competitions in the middle of a blisteringly-hot summer, and continued at two shows a week until mid-August. There was plenty of talent on display, but the programme had decided to become a cheap Pop Idol clone for the BBC. Even the scheduling was a carbon copy, two programmes on a Saturday, neatly scheduled around the singing show on ITV. Richard Park presented himself as the most obnoxious man on the planet, trying to be even nastier than Simon Cowell, but his recurring criticism of Alistair Griffin came off as jealous grousing from someone who didn't actually recognise talent when he saw it.

The new series was shot in the entrance hall to the Academy building, ensuring there's no space to do anything more than a bounce up-and-down. Everyone was up for the vote every single week, reducing the learning curve to a linear popularity contest. Things got so desperate that Park got involved in a blazing stand-up row with host Patrick "Good work, fellah" Kielty, one that had real emotion, and we hoped would have no winner. There was a loser from the exchange, it entirely eclipsed the performance by Paris Campbell-Edwards, distracting casual voters, causing him to fall out of the contest that week, and allowing Griffin and Alex Parks passage to the final, won by Parks.

In its place came The X Factor (ITV, 2004 – present), a radically different series created by Simon Cowell. It was all his own work, apart from the 20% that was credited to Pop Idol, and the elements from Popstars and Strictly Come Dancing. A panel of judges – initially Cowell, Louis Walsh, and Sharon Osbourne from hit fly-on-the-wall documentary series The Osbournes – would travel the country auditioning potential singers. Unlike Pop Idol, this show was open to all ages; like Pop Idol, it was only interested in singers.

Once the pool of applicants had been reduced to manageable numbers, they were divided into groups and solo singers, and the soloists by age, and each of the judges given responsibility for one category. They'd pick four from the category, and the viewing public would then vote. The last two in the televote are in danger, and the judges will vote to save one of them; whichever loses that vote is out. Most weeks, two of the judges will have acts in the sing-off, allowing the third to vote out the one they thought worse, or the greater threat to their contestants.

Over the years, The X Factor developed a predictable television grammar of its own – reaction shots thrown in without regard to continuity, successful auditionees always finding out on an upwards key change, as much inter-judge bickering as is possible. If there were a drinking game based on the cliches of the show, viewers would be suffering from alcohol poisoning.

Almost inevitably, The X Factor was a promotional vehicle for Simon Cowell in particular, and for his Sony BMG group in general. Cowell's company Syco signs all the finalists, and the recordings are distributed through Sony BMG. The company also supplies most of the show's guests – Bon Jovi, Michael Bublé, the Black Eyed Peas – and a surprisingly large chunk of the repertoire performed on the programme is licensed by Sony BMG or its subsidiaries.

Indeed, in the week before this review was published, Cowell very cleverly refused to make a choice between two very different performers, allowing the public vote to rule. Why might he want to give up his casting vote? Cowell knows that his show is a money-making machine first, and that putting bums on seats is very important. Get people to talk about his show, people will watch it, ITV will rake in the money and want to renew the format at any price. Cowell will become even richer, and without forcing anyone to sing "'Unchained' Melody". Never mind the fact that reality shows have found approximately four genuine stars (Will Young from Pop Idle 2002, Lemar from Fame Academy 2002, Girls Aloud from Popstars The Rivals 2002, and Leona Lewis from The X Factor 2006), the main thing Cowell's selling is his format and his notoriety.

Pop Idol, The X Factor, Fame Academy aren't pure singing competitions – if they were, the contenders would be dressed as choirboys and asked to go from do-a-deer to do and back again. No, they're an exercise in marketing and selling a vision to the masses, and Simon Cowell has proven an expert at that slicing and dicing. It might lack artistic merit (see the singing career of Robson and Jerome), but heavens it's popular.

There were more traditional performance competitions – BBC Young Musician and BBC Cardiff Singer of the World ran in alternate years through the decade. Nods to the higher arts could be found in Operatunity (C4, 2003), which sought a star of opera. Classical Star (BBC2, 2007) tried to find someone who could be marketed to a mass audience; given that the winner hasn't permeated the mass market, the show has to be seen as something of a failure. Maestro (BBC2, 2008) brought celebrities to the world of conducting with greater success.

In the critical list, musical theatre falls somewhere between classical and popular music, and has proven a rich vein for well-adjusted shows. Ground was broken by How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? (BBC1, 2006), in which Andrew Lloyd Webber found a lead for his revival of The Sound of Music. This series followed many of the conventions established by The X Factor – audition shows, live shows, a panel of judges with license to speak their minds, viewer televoting, and Lloyd Webber deciding who should leave the show. A very similar format promoted Joseph (Any Dream Will Do, 2007) and Cameron Mackintosh's Oliver! (I'd Do Anything, 2008). ITV tried to muscle in on the territory with Grease is the Word (2007), but it was so clearly a copy of ...Maria that even Simon Cowell couldn't save the show.

Kay's programme referred to the other strand of performance shows we've seen this decade, where celebrities attempt to do something where they might end up making fools of themselves. There's always been a market for television personalities outside their field of expertise – remember Angela Rippon on the Morecambe and Wise show? – but in this decade, it's become even larger. Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1, 2004 – present) brought ballroom dancing to the masses.

Strictly had the opportunity to write the rulebook, and took it with both hands. The auditions were entirely dispensable, but the judges' say was formalised, their ranking was combined with the ranking of the public vote to produce the final result. Then the bottom two would dance off again, with the judges determining who would leave. This last idea would be adopted by The X Factor when it took to the screen a few months later.

ITV had independently developed a similar show, and though Dancing on Ice (2006 – present) was three series behind Strictly, it's remained a regular ratings winner. Who would turn down the chance to see Andi Peters making a fool of himself by falling over? Even so, it feels like Strictly, but on ice, and lacks something of the warmth of Brucie's show.

ITV's long-running impressions show Stars in Their Eyes was allowed to wither on the vine, losing the members of the public and replacing them with people off of Coronation Street, which wasn't quite as endearing. There were shows asking celebrities to do a funny turn – The All Star Talent Show (C5, 2006) was a pre-emptive spoiler against Britain's Got Talent, and The X Factor Battle of The Stars (ITV, 2006) was self-explanatory.

ITV's soap operas used talent shows as a two-way street – Soapstars (ITV, 2001) found a short-lived set of characters via an audition process that copied Popstars. On the other hand, Soapstar Superstar (ITV, 2005-7) took the cast of soaps, and got them to sing a la Pop Idol. The show is only remembered as one of the most egregious failures of ITV's premium rate telephone systems. The only failures were ones of "why did you commission this?" for Sing It Back: Lyric Champion 2007 (2007), a quiz about knowledge of song lyrics, and for competitive karaoke show Who Dares Sings! (2008-9).

Children's shows tended to ignore the phone vote, though Starfinder (ITV, 2004-6) was a worthy attempt to find the most capable young astronaut. BBC shows like The Slammer (2006-8) and Skate Nation (2009) preferred to keep the voting in the studio, which was no bad thing. Equally self-contained was Hannah-Oke (Disney Channel, 2009), a show inviting all the family to sing and dance and have a fun time.

For all their claims of helping to nurture young talent, shows actually giving a leg up to talented youngsters on their own terms have been few and far between. Simon Cowell wants to mould everyone into a commercial package he can sell, Britain's Got Talent is only interested in people who can demonstrate their talent in three minutes, and the rest of ITV's schedule is only interested in established celebrities, assuming that someone else will give new talent a break. We were gratified to follow the E4 School of Performing Arts (E4, 2007), and see young singer-songwriters, young dancers, young actors get a chance to hone their talents and win places at respected schools. A similar prize was on offer for sportspeople in Born to Win (BBC1, 2003). But the under-investment in young talent continues; television picks off the cream of other people's work.

The Eurovision Song Contest begat a Junior version (2003 – present), shown on ITV and ITV2 until 2005, when the company found the whole thing to be a bit of a waste of time. Eurovision Young Musicians continued every second year, with the continent uniting to see promising talent play live. Eurovision Young Dancers went out in the odd-numbered years, again playing to packed audiences across the continent. That's except in the UK, where the shows were shoved out on arts ghetto BBC4, sometimes three months after the event. Young Dancers was cancelled after 2005, in favour of the Eurovision Dance Contest (2007-8), a cross between Strictly and the Song Contest that never quite found its reason to be.

Throughout the decade, there's been a sense that the Great British Public might wish to pull one over the judges. Rik Waller may only have made the final ten on Pop Idol because of his ineptitude, and was Will Young's victory a reaction to Simon Cowell's overt preference for The Anointed One? Todd Carty and John Sergeant were kept in their dancing shows long beyond their actual talent, and we wonder if Steve Brookstein's victory in X Factor 2004 was Britain asking Mr. Cowell to make a silk purse out of that sow's ear. The greatest such example, surely, is the success of the Grimes twins on the 2009 series of X Factor; can't sing, can't dance, but such showmen as to divide the country. Britain has a challenge for Simon Cowell: John and Edward are talented, they don't fit his mould, can he work with them? Does Simon have the X factor?