Starring Various Original language(s) Various First episode date 25 December 2003 | Directed by Jonathan Bullen Judges See below No. of seasons 1 Final episode date 1 January 2004 Program creator Simon Fuller | |
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Also known as SuperStar Weltweit; SuperStar El Alaam Similar | ||
World Idol (Germany: SuperStar Weltweit, Middle East: SuperStar El Alaam) was the title of a one-off international version of the television show Pop Idol, featuring winners of the various national Idol shows around the world competing against each other.
Contents
Show background
The performance show was broadcast on Christmas Day 2003, with the results show aired on New Year's Day 2004. It was produced in the United Kingdom at Fountain Studios in London, using the set from the recently completed second series of Pop Idol. After presenting the competitors, viewers from the 11 participating countries were allowed to vote by telephone, but not for the participant from their home country. All participants sang in English except for Diana Karazon, who sang in Arabic.
British presenters Ant and Dec hosted the show in all English speaking countries, while local presenters hosted for their own country in the local language. The only exception to Ant and Dec's English speaking role was that CTV edited the show in Canada to use Canadian Idol host Ben Mulroney instead (the show on Fox, which used Ant and Dec as hosts, was not simulcast with the CTV feed, to prevent Canadians from calling the American toll-free number to vote for their idol, Ryan Malcolm). Victoria Beckham performed her UK No. 3 hit Let Your Head Go during the results interval.
The show was broadcast on 11 television broadcasters worldwide.
Broadcasters
Results
The points were awarded in a similar fashion as the Eurovision Song Contest, i.e. each country awarded an amount of points from 1 to 10 to each other country, using each number once. The results were:
Scoreboard
Each country's Idol automatically gained the maximum 12 points. Therefore, the most points an Idol could gain from another country was 10.
10 points
Below is a summary of all 10 (max) points in the final:
Judges
The judges of the competition were:
Reception
Simon Cowell, who judged American Idol as well as the original Pop Idol, was very critical of the format. He went as far as to say he hated it, in that it made the winners from the ten other Idol competitions into losers. Cowell also thought many of the judges were trying to copy his abrasive style. Television critics also panned the programme, particularly as the UK phone voting was profit-making, whereas tradition dictates that Christmas specials of such programmes donate profits to charity.
Ratings
In Canada, the special was watched by 1.9 million viewers. In Poland, World Idol was the highest-rated in its timeslot, 4.5 million viewers, and 28.6 share percent. In the United States, World Idol was the number-one show of the night, among adults from 18-34. In Australia, it was the highest-rated show of the night, it had about 2.4 viewers in millions. In the Netherlands, it was the No. 1 rated show in its timeslot. Other countries also had good ratings during the Christmas period.