OK, guilty pleasure alert -- I kind of love American Idol. In fact, I have previously referred to it as, "my crack." I even named my MacBook, "Simon" because it was purchased with money I made writing about the show last season (and because I am a GIGANTIC dork). And even though I'm not professionally covering the show this year, I remain a huge fan. Hey, we're all allowed to have our vices, and looking at the TV ratings, millions of other people are just as lame as me. Last year, performances and "singles" from the #1 show on television didn't come to iTunes until AFTER the season had ended. I don't know if it was because Apple and Fox couldn't work out an agreement early enough (iTunes did feature the Idol Gives Back charity singles/videos), or what, but I have a feeling a lot of potential money was lost by not having performances available on iTunes earlier. This year, iTunes is in on the action from the very beginning.
Starting this week, the audio performances from the Top 24 contestants will be available on iTunes for $.99 a piece. Starting March 11, the full video performances from the the Top 12 finalists will be available for $1.99 a piece. Fans can even "pre-order" performances from their favorite contestants from within iTunes, and those songs or videos will be automatically downloaded the day after the show airs.
iTunes is also providing, in their words, "exclusive direct links from the free streaming performance videos on americanidol.com".
If they follow last year's trend, the contestant's will record their chosen song each week in a studio BEFORE performing live on the show, and that audio file will be available the next day. The video footage will be from the live performance and from slightly different angles than what is used for the television broadcast.
The Top 24 starts tonight, meaning the first batch of downloads will be available tomorrow.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-19-2008 @ 11:16AM
punkassjim said...
Your Macbook was bought with money you made by writing about American Idol?
The mind reels.
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 11:23AM
Christina Warren said...
Heh -- well, I contributed to the print and online coverage for a major publication, but I totally agree from the abstract.
2-19-2008 @ 1:11PM
punkassjim said...
yeah, for what it's worth, I don't have anything against entertainment writers. Gotta butter your bread somehow. But the fact that there's an entire industry of entertainment reporting just really scares me. Not to mention...how can you possibly scrub hard enough?
2-19-2008 @ 11:46AM
David said...
From a marketing standpoint, this is a REALLY good idea. I've often wondered why FOX didn't get in on the iTunes goodness with American Idol sooner. This is what I expected to see a year or even two years ago. Good for them.
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 11:47AM
poopninja said...
Look!....Frost!, Seriously I thought TUAW was the only place on the web where one could be safe from trailerpark TV. I sincerely hope your fellow TUAWERS finds a wet sunday newspaper and gives you a proper spanking
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 11:54AM
mingistech said...
Trailerpark TV... haha... perfect.
But seriously.... I hate everything about that show.
2-19-2008 @ 11:48AM
umijin said...
So, Apple is selling more bad entertainment (read: US TV Shows) via iTunes.
Uninspiring.
Now if Apple USA was selling BBC programs, that would be impressive.
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 12:13PM
poopninja said...
They could not sell BBC programs in the US, putting Subtitles on all those shows would be too much mula, Hence they made their own BUTCHERED version of the Office
2-19-2008 @ 12:31PM
rener said...
Wow! Actually available from iTunes Canada as well. Free video: "I'll be Your Brother" ~80mb. Quality is fair...
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 12:50PM
ben said...
aren't the performances for the next few weeks only like 30seconds long or so? that seems like a bit of a rip off for 1$, not to mention how easy it is to get a capture card for your computer and record the full HD broadcast...
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 1:38PM
Christina Warren said...
2 minutes -- and for the videos, I agree, total rip off. For the songs? Eh, you get the full song. If you want to pay $1 to hear someone's quickly produced cover is debatable, some of the MP3's last year were actually pretty good, considering the source.
2-19-2008 @ 1:03PM
Ty said...
I love American Idol, this is great
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 1:44PM
Nic said...
I hate music snobs who believe there exists such a thing as 'guilty pleasures', no music is inherently better or worse just because it the singer didn't write it, or got their break by appearing on one of these shows. If I lived in the US I bet I'd love this. I'm so annoyed that the technology wasn't there in 2002 when the UK version of Pop Idol was on, it would have been brilliant to download my favourite's songs each week, even better studio recorded without audience noise!
Writing about entertainment also isn't any worse than writing about computers surely, the vast majority of stuff on here is consumer-orientated and isn't 'necessary' in any true sense, so there's not much difference there.
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 6:24PM
Steve said...
Very well said, I completely agree. Entertainment news is just as worthless as Technology news.
2-19-2008 @ 1:56PM
krye said...
Wow, talk about cashing in!!!
Reply
2-19-2008 @ 3:32PM
Nic said...
talk about 'capitalism'!
2-19-2008 @ 4:55PM
ZeroCorpse said...
To quote Lord Vader:
NOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo!!!
Reply
2-20-2008 @ 6:00PM
sjmills said...
That's too bad. What a waste of disk space and bandwidth.
Reply