If Wednesday's “American Idol” announcement of new judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez is a harbinger of the show’s coming season, Fox’s reality unit better be in high development mode.
Wow. What a PR train wreck.
The biggest news coming out of the event, held at the L.A. Forum, was that a global media powerhouse had no online audio. But what wasn't so apparent was a series of more subtle missteps reflecting age-old publicity problems and a critical new one.
“Idol’s” biggest PR mistake -- the overarching one which ultimately affected everything else -- was how it treated the online fan community it had invited along.
“Idol” wound up sending its national web audience a simple message: If you weren’t front and center at the Forum, you just don’t count. Despite promotion to drive online viewing of the webcast, both the judges' announcement (made before those at auditions) and the ensuing press conference (held with media nearby) ended up serving almost exclusively those in person, rather than the millions coast-to-coast whom it desperately wants as viewers next January.
How did it happen?
For starters, there were those humiliating technical problems for online viewers, especially those of us -- including me -- who chose to follow along on the official "Idol" site.
After starting six minutes late, all but 90 seconds of the eight-minute announcement ran minus sound. The few times audio came through, it was tinny. There was a tsunami of pissed-off tweets from annoyed fans, which unfortunately appeared in a box on the "Idol" site itself.
Then, though the following press conference had begun streaming on various media sites, it was still MIA on the "Idol" homepage, with fan tweets now asking "what's up?" I don't know when it finally was patched into AmericanIdol.com since I'd already switched elsewhere to view it.
The lack of audio matched overall poor production values. Most of the camera shots came from way back in the Forum; for all that web viewers knew, it was Brian Dunkleman up there intro-ing the new judges. The press conference – in a room dressed as nice as a school bake sale -- featured eight people lined up at a long table. As that back-of-the-room camera tried to take in the whole group, it was near-impossible to distinguish Fox exec Mike Darnell from Steven Tyler. A second camera providing tighter two-shots rarely caught the person actually speaking.
Making matters worse was the absence of on-screen graphics ID'ing the speakers. If I were Jimmy Iovine, the respected record producer whose role as mentor to contestants was one of the few real news items, I’d have my manager screaming at the PR people this very minute.
Corners seem to have been cut on PR prep, too.
A basic goal of publicity is to strategically advance your story. People should walk away knowing more about you – specifically, what you want them to know – than when they arrived.
