WSJ: Informed Reader

POPULAR CULTURE
Success of 'American Idol' Owes to Need for Standards
• THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION -- MARCH 16

What drives the success of "American Idol?" The show's ability to deliver an old-fashioned message: Standards still count.

According to Christopher Ames, provost and dean of the college at Washington College in Maryland, the televised singing competition satisfies Americans' "veritable hunger for realistic evaluation." It also runs counter to the beliefs that high self-esteem isn't to be tampered with, that experts are snobs who don't really know more than regular people, and that artistic talent is a matter of personal opinion.

The losers in the early rounds often have a highly unrealistic sense of their ability. In this, the experts and the audience nearly always agree. In one episode, judge Simon Cowell challenged an angry, spurned contestant to find three people at a local shopping mall who would testify that he sang well. Even in the final rounds, with the audience voting for which contestants stay or leave, the judges "are still center stage, guiding the cultural consensus."