TV singing auditions run out of steam
MBC’s “Star Audition: The Great Birth” / Courtesy of MBC
By Kim Tong-hyung
The inevitable became reality Wednesday when MBC television confirmed its pulling the plug on its overhyped-but-disappointing singing contest, ``The Great Birth,’’ which proved to be birth astride a grave.
The show made its debut in November of 2010, when the nation was already bashed over the head with a slew of reality talent programs that were on national networks and cable channels. It took three nondescript seasons for MBC to admit Great Birth was sunken cost. It remains to be seen whether other shows will be following it to the guillotine.
``We have no plans for Season 4. Things can change of course but the new season isn’t being produced at the moment,’’ said an official from MBC, which now only has the Korean version of ``Dancing with the Stars’’ left on its competition-show platform.
Great Birth did reasonably well in the first season, when viewer ratings peaked at 20 percent. Its third season last year was marginally better than anonymous, with ratings measured at 7.5 percent. While contestants from other talent shows went on to become popular singers, such as Superstar K’s (Mnet) Heo Gak and Survival Audition K-Pop Star’s (SBS) Lee Hi, Great Birth suffered from a paucity of star alumni.
Even without Great Birth, there will be more than enough singing contests to force-feed couch potatoes. As it prepares for the fifth season of its flagship show, Superstar K, Mnet is currently airing the second season of another talent show, ``Voice Korea.’’ SBS remains committed to K-Pop Star and cable channel tvN has ``Korea’s Got Talent.’’
Well, Korea’s got talent, but just not this much. Music industry officials say that the quality of competition has become a problem for the shows because talent is spread too thinly across them. This feeds the public’s growing fatigue over the ubiquitous singing competitions, which haven’t exactly provided an alternative to the insipidness and bleached-out personalities that are beginning to define K-pop.
``It’s easy to explain why the singing contests are experiencing falling audience records. With so many shows hogging the airtime, each of them doesn’t have enough contestants who can really sing and keep viewers interested. I know it can’t be true, but it does feel that we depleted the country’s talent pool already,’’ said an official from an entertainment agency.
``It doesn’t help that the pop stars who work as the judges for the audition programs aren’t really establishing their own personalities and just repeating the carrot-and-whip two-step perfected by the original American Idol judges Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell. As a result, the shows become predictable and boring.’’