In a discussion with the editor of this supplement about the question to which topic I will dedicate the column you are reading now, I was suggested to write about the failure of the ninth season of "The Next Star", which I doubt you noticed that this very week came to an end, with the winner Eliav Zohar and with a not particularly glamorous rating of 20.1 percent.
I, in response, explained that I didn't watch the entire season religiously, and this is probably an answer that says quite a bit - and exactly the good reason why it's worth focusing on it.
I am the classic audience of the show, and those who are still shocked by the fact that Boris Sultanov defeated Kabra Kasai in the first season, in the days when it was still called "A Star Is Born".
My mouth still hasn't closed from the shock in which it opened the moment Hadar Ozari was eliminated and did not reach the finals in the third season.
Since then, there have been seasons in which I watched more, seasons that I survived less, but I always-always came back.
Even in the current season, I believed in the explosive promos (can we stop with the dramatic promos about every contestant?!) - and I signed up.
"The Next Star" ends the season with an average rating of 16.6 - the lowest of the show since its first incarnation in 2003.
The final of "The Next Star" was the lowest - in terms of attracting viewers - of all the previous finals, and 11 percent lower than the "Big Brother" final of the competitors from network 13, which was broadcast three days before it.
The lack of interest in the program, after the failure of "X Factor" on Network 13, overwhelms the question of the relevance of music programs in general - and of "The Next Star" in particular.
If in the past "A star is born" replaced the military bands in the role of the star maker of the entertainment and music industry, today Tiktok has taken their place, or at least they are on their way there.
In an era where a star is born one viral video away on the mega-popular app, viewers at home have no patience to watch a thousand singers, a hundred auditions and dozens of performances, in order to crown the one - who since his first audition on television, a hundred more like him, and even better than him, were born on Tiktok.
And if in the past the radio stations waited for the first single of the winner of the show, today big artists release a single to Tiktok, and only if it catches on, will it be released on the radio.
But you also have to remember that not everyone is on TikTok.
So why didn't this season grab me anyway?
To understand the answer, you have to go back to the excellent eighth season, at the end of which four excellent singers went on the air - led by Tamir Greenberg.
In this aspect, it seems that the season did not manage to excite the viewers at home enough, and with the exception of Eliav, and a little before the end also Nofa, the contestants did not become stars or memorable.
There is no Neta Barzilai, Margie or Tamir Greenberg here.
And when there are none, the only topic of conversation is Assaf Amdorski's look, and no matter how mesmerizing Ninet's beauty is.
Add to all of this the success of "Big Brother" on network 13, which proved that with good content (and not necessarily high quality) the rivalry between Bar and Talia is much more interesting than the jokes of Essi and Rotem, who also exhausted themselves.
But that's a matter for another column.
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