Four years ago, I was invited to the American Television Critics Conference for the launch of the new television season, which opened with a female character dressed as a golden lion, who took the stage and performed "California Dreaming" from the sixties.
"A proven sensation and an original program like no other," declared Fox Channel President Dana Walden in the announcement of "The Masked Singer".
The rating keys are inside, go bye.
The American version of the Korean format appeared in the US in 2019, and indeed generated a lot of interest around the gimmick of apparently very famous stars, who demonstrate singing abilities and capture the hearts of viewers without their identity being known. The exposures turned out time and time again to be familiar faces that had been forgotten, but not really superstars. The amusement hall made up for the star quality with an entertaining product, and the audience indulged in nostalgia for past singers such as Seal, Toni Braxton and the Henson Band, who got a moment of screen time again. "The Singer" was a comforting candy in the days of the Corona, with good viewing figures of 11-10 million viewers every week .The record came when the opening episode of the third season was slotted immediately after the 2021 Super Bowl, the most watched broadcast platform of the year, achieving a record rating of 23.7 million viewers.
Fox quickly produced copies of "The Singer", such as "The Masked Dancer" in which the costumed stars danced, "Alter Ego" with contestants who sang through a computer animated character without being seen, and another format, also from Korea, called "Seeing the Voice" (also It will be released soon in an Israeli version), where the panel must decipher whether the contestants are indeed singing themselves or whether it is a lipsync to someone else's voice.
The trend did not pass by the reality king of the era, RuPaul Charles ("RuPaul's Drag Race"), who also appeared in a VIP version with celebs who lip-synced as drag queens, and last summer a show called "Claim to Fame" appeared ), which combined the element of anonymity with a format reminiscent of "Big Brother", while the relatives of the stars move in together in a villa without knowing the identity of each other's famous relative, and must guess and decipher who they live with.
Maybe all this sounds promising, but all the imitations of all kinds failed to rise.
This week, the promos for the new and third season of the Israeli version of "The Singer" went up, which, as usual for promos, claim a dizzying success of the format in the past year.
This may have been true before the first season, but regarding the past year, as mentioned, it is the complete opposite.
And not only in the USA the format was eroded - in 2022 the format expanded to five more countries, including Argentina and Turkey, in both of which the local versions crashed and were canceled immediately.
Let's go back to the USA. The eighth season that was broadcast last fall started with a negative record of only 3.7 million viewers, and the casting crisis in recent seasons was felt with exposures such as the punk singer George Clinton (81), Monty Python's friend Eric Idle (79) and the actor William Shatner (91). On top of that, in a desperate attempt to arouse renewed interest, the format was reversed, and instead of eliminating and revealing one celebrity at the end of each episode (obviously in Israel this does not always happen), in each episode only one of the contestants makes it to the finals and the rest of the disguised ones are revealed immediately at the end. That is, They abandoned the principle of building anticipation from episode to episode, and the competition in the competitive reality show became something marginal.
All of this is overshadowed by the image damage from the previous season in which Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and former President Donald Trump's controversial attorney, who was accused of involvement in the storming of Capitol Hill and suspended from practicing law over allegations of disseminating false information, took part.
The fact of his participation was leaked two months before the broadcast and immediately caused public outrage.
The illusion of a family-friendly program was shattered.
Comedian Ken Jung on the judging panel folded his hands and frowned during the reveal, and sources claimed that he stormed out of the studio shortly after the reveal, saying "I'm done with this."
Television critics called the event a television low, and stated that the format had finally exhausted itself.
By the way, this is not to declare the death of reality TV, God forbid.
When he's really interesting, he's also successful.
See, for example, "Survival" and "The Race for a Million", which continue to bring good and stable ratings even after more than two decades on the screen.
But is the "singer" in the whole world a crazy lager that must be watched?
Definately not.
The excessive superlatives and the attempt to create a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) are ridiculous.
Want to see who is hiding behind the mask?
Just do a little google search and you will see the truth.
Our reporter and the flamingo on the red carpet, Emmy ceremony 2019, photo: Dodi Caspi
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