The New Ed Sullivan Show

Quote of the day:
“During the Nineties, and again in the wake of September 11, 2001, I was struck more than once by a perverse contemporary insistence on not understanding the context of our present dilemmas, at home and abroad; on not listening with greater care to some of the wiser heads of earlier decades; on seeking actively to forget rather than remember, to deny continuity and proclaim novelty on every possible occasion. We have become stridently insistent that the past has little of interest to teach us. Ours, we assert, is a new world; its risks and opportunities are without precedent.”
--Tony Judt, in the May 1 New York Review

In the 1960s, just about all of America gathered around the TV on Sunday nights to watch The Ed Sullivan Show.

In 2008, just about all of America gathers around the TV on Tuesday nights to watch American Idol.

AI is an extraordinary phenomenon. In a fragmented TV universe, it is a mass-audience program, drawing tens of millions of viewers a week and dominating the TV ratings.

In some significant ways, it is very much like the variety programs of TV’s first three decades. It features live and unscripted performances, a host and some regular “guests”--the panel of judges.

The interactions among these people and the contestants is a vital element of the show, as is the ever-present theme of the making of a pop star. Added to this is the weekly drama of who will be voted off the competition. The show is widely talked about among friends and coworkers.

It’s fascinating that it has become America’s weekly gathering place, much as Ed Sullivan was some 40 years ago, and Jack Benny was on radio some 30 years before that.