Ok, given I don't live in a major city, I only am speaking from my experience with my local stations.

^^^only gets am stations^^^

You should see my antenna made out of wireties and coathangers!!!

Well, from hades, it is a pretty far distance, so it can be expected

so NOT a Fantasia fan...BUT she has been extremely successful (as have some other past contestants) on Broadway. Taylor Hicks..also not a fan and still not sure how it happened...but he's gone the stage show route as well.

Jordin has become popular with the Disney tween crowd...which was always her market.

there are times when i'm in the car and the station is doing the 10 songs in a row thing, and easily half are from idol alums.... pretty awesome success rate.

and the ford commercials are part of the winners contract.

Something to remember about Fantasia is that she has not concentrated on doing music for the radio. She went the musical theatre route and was very good on Broadway in The Color Purple. Also, I think one of the big reasons she failed was differences in what she wanted to do vs. what 19 Entertainment wanted her to do, kind of like what happened with Kelly Clarkson when her first album wasn't really her cup of tea and wasn't as good as later albums she put together.

Reuben was sidelined with health issues, or we might have heard more from him.

But Fantasia is having major voice issues from doing Broadway. Oprah took her back once, but supposedly is not at all happy with her now.

I saw Fantasia in a touring company of The Color Purple. She was OK. LaToya London was also in the same production of The Color Purple and I thought she sounded better than Fantasia.

I saw the same production, Kitty, and I agree!

Did you guys think that Big Mike did a good job on the Elanor Rigby song? I thought it was fantastic.

I didn't really care for it, but I don't care much for Mike's singing style, either. I like "Big Mike" the character - he seems like a genuinely good guy...but that style music just isn't really my cuppa.

does it strike any one else as odd, funny, sad...that the judges-mostly Simon- berate the contestants for "musical theatre"...while every Wednesday those same contestants, on the same show are singing and dancing their way through something seen only in High Schools during spring musical season?

I've never seen the value of the "group sing"...and generally will avoid the first 5-10 minutes of the results show!

It wasn't as good as David Cook's version, but it was still really good, IMO.

As a general rule I will not watch anything but the last 10 minutes of the results show. The past two weeks of flipping through and seeing Usher and Rianna's performances confirmed my choice.

Ah, I didn't see David Cook do it. I only seem to watch American Idol every couple seasons. I just watch when my wife watches. I like the idea of the show but the format is awful. The "results" show is the biggest waste of television I have ever seen. It would take all of ten minutes at the most to let everyone know who was leaving the show but somehow they stretch it into a 2 hour episode with 5 million commercials. I usually just fast forward to the last 20 minutes and then delete.

I HATE the group songs! The worst part is you can totally tell they aren't really singing and it's awful!

I too fast forward through the results show to just find out who won, stopping for performances by people I like or have never seen before.

Personally, I liked the format the did for the country version of this show. Can't remember what it was called, but the performers were a little more ready to go, and they all sang the first week, and then the next week, everyone but the person with the fewest votes sang, so as you watched the show, they revealed who was safe until those final two, and then only one of them would perform.

Yeah, now that sounds like something a little more worth my time. I just can't stand if I have to wait through that [censored]. But, seriously, those commercials are ridiculous. There are way too many.

Thus why I DVR American Idol and watch it commercial free!

I too fast forward through the results show to just find out who won, stopping for performances by people I like or have never seen before.

Personally, I liked the format the did for the country version of this show. Can't remember what it was called, but the performers were a little more ready to go, and they all sang the first week, and then the next week, everyone but the person with the fewest votes sang, so as you watched the show, they revealed who was safe until those final two, and then only one of them would perform.[/quote]

There's a real irony that in the results show, you just get to hear the contestant that no one thought was any good! The way you describe makes alot more sense. It would be really cool if they could either have a new song ready, or reprise their "best" of the season so far. I'd tune in for that.

It was called "Nashville Star". I have always thought that country singers are more authentic anyway. I have never heard them lip sync in concert and they acutally have talent. Not to say that no one on AI doesn't have talent, but pop stars in general seem to have less actual singing talent and are more about the "performance".

Some of them should.

Thank you! It was Nashville Star.

Oh, and it was a once a week format. They didn't bother wit ha results show, the performance show was the week before's results show.

You're right ::cough cough:: Taylor Swift!...but all that I have seen live have been really good. Probably the best I have ever heard was Carrie Underwood, that girl can sing!

The beauty of American Idol is you know you're getting a great live singer.