'' was a British Television series shown on ITV1 ; the show was a talent contest to find the best new young singer or 'pop idol' in the UK . The Idol Series has spun off dozens of successes such as '' American Idol '', '' Canadian Idol '', '' Indian Idol '', '' Australian Idol '', '' Indonesian Idol '', '' Malaysian Idol '' and Deutschland Sucht Den SuperStar (which wasn't allowed to use the title "German Idol" for legal reasons).
Unusually, the Format was created not by TV producers but by music Impresario Simon Fuller . ''Pop Idol'' combined the traditional talent show with some aspects of Reality Television . One of the UK's top-earning TV Format exports, ''Pop Idol'' made extensive use of premium-priced viewer interactivity, with viewers voting by telephone, mobile telephone Texting or through the " Red Button " on Digital Television sets. The final of the first series of ''Pop Idol'' in February 2002 received the highest-ever one-night vote for a UK TV show, making the show one of ITV1's most profitable. The sister show on ITV2, ''Pop Idol Extra'', also made extensive use of mobile phone text messages to raise additional revenue. The first Pop Idol got very high voting figures despite not make use of texting or the 'red button' but only telephone and Internet voting.
In the Saturday night primetime show, hopefuls first auditioned before four judges ( Pete Waterman , Simon Cowell , Nicki Chapman and Neil "Dr" Fox ). Besides the successful auditioners, the poorest "singers" were often aired due to their obvious lack of talent or presence. Poor singers often faced harsh criticisms from many judges, mainly Simon Cowell (whose controversial rantings also made him famous on '' American Idol ''). The judge's reactions often extended from disgust to nearly open laughter over such performances.
Once auditions wrapped up, judges narrowed down the performers to a final 50, themselves narrowed down in weekly heats to ten (or in the second series twelve) finalists by a viewer vote. After that, each contestant performed live. Viewers had several hours following the broadcast of the show to phone in their votes for their favorite contestant. On the night's second episode (live again), the contestant with the fewest votes was sent home. The show was presented by British TV personalities Ant And Dec .
In the first season, Will Young won, with Gareth Gates coming in second. Michelle McManus won the second season contest. However, due to a declining number of viewers during the second season, the show was eventually suspended indefinitely. However, its impact was intense and led to a large number of spinoffs overseas.
See Also: Idol series
The ''Pop Idol'' format has been launched in over a dozen nations worldwide. As well, there have been many imitations of the program.
A '' World Idol '' international television special was held in December 2003 , featuring national first series ''Idol'' contest winners competing against each other; viewers worldwide voted Norwegian idol Kurt Nilsen "World Idol".
The similar '' Popstars '' format preceded ''Pop Idol''.
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