thetalentzone

World Talent Discovered

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British television has had a long history of talent shows where many successful talents have been discovered. However, the format of these shows have change significantly since the beginning of the century as a result of  computing and telecommunication advancements. These advancements allow the public to participate by  voting for their favourite contestant electronically for the first time. The show which led the way for this new style of audience participation to find new vocal talent was the 2001 ITV show Pop Idol created by Simon Fuller. The format has since been duplicated in many countries around the world. In Britain following the success of Pop Idol, both the BBC and ITV produced further talent shows which attracted mass audience and lucrative revenue from telephone voting.

Britain's Got Talent

Britain’s Got Talent is the latest talent show to hit the UK. Launched in 2007 on ITV by Simon Cowell, the show has proved a big hit with the public, so much so that the second season saw viewing figures which puts it on course to become Britain’s most popular TV program. Click to view Britain’s Got Talent best performances.

The X Factor

The X Factor, the brain child of Simon Cowell, was launched on ITV in 2004. The show as gone from strength to strength and is rarely out of the headlines. It has produced worthy winners such as Shayne Ward and Leona Lewis but the headlines are often dominated by issues surrounding the judges. One of the biggest was the sacking of Louis Walsh from the judging panel in 2007, only to be reinstated at the start of the series in the same year. Also in 2007, Dannii Minogue joined Louis, Simon and Sharen Osbourne as the forth member of the panel.

Pop Idol

In 2001/2 the ITV first series of Pop Idol saw Will Young and Gareth Gates go head to head for the Pop Idol crown in a very close and exciting race. Will emerge has the victor, but  both Will and Gareth when on to have commercial success. In 2002 ITV produce Popstars The Rivals which focused on creating a girl group and boy group from the most talented contestants. Girls Aloud was the girl group created by the show; they went on to have amazing chart success. They are now perhaps one of the most successful girl groups produced in the UK.  2003 saw the return of a second series of Pop Idol, which was won by Michelle McManus. The pop Idol series did not only bring fame to the contestants, but the judges also became a household name, in particular Simon Cowell. 

Fame Academy

In 2002 and 2003 the BBC produced Fame Academy. This show had much more of a reality TV theme to that of  Pop Idol because the contestants lived together during the time they were on the show and was cut off from the outside world. Their daily lives were televised each day along with the main weekly TV show where the contestants  performed live and the public voted to save their favourite contestant.  The winner of the first series was David Sneddon, and the second series was Alex Parks. However it was Lemar, a contestant in the first series who has had the greatest commercial success since leaving the show.