Controversy
The show had been criticized in earlier seasons over the onerous contract contestants had to sign that gave excessive control to 19 Entertainment over their future career, and handed a large part of their future earnings to the management.
Individual contestants have generated controversy in this competition for their past actions, or for being 'ringers' planted by the producers. A number of contestants had been disqualified for various reasons, such as for having an existing contract or undisclosed criminal records, although the show had been accused of double standard for disqualifying some but not the others.
Voting results have been a consistent source of controversy. The mechanism of voting had also aroused considerable criticisms, most notably in season two when Ruben Studdard beat Clay Aiken in a close vote, and in season eight, when the massive increase in text votes (100 million more text votes than season 7) fueled the texting controversy. Concerns about power voting have been expressed from the very first season. Since 2004, votes also have been affected to a limited degree by online community services such as DialIdol and Vote for the Worst.
Read more about this topic: American Idol
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)