Aussie Bloggers

The promo video for cycle 4 of Australia’s Next Top Model is now being shown on Foxtel and Austar. Here is the extended clip – there are also shorter versions.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=0YIZ-RJm2TM]

Australia’s Next Top Model website finally has some content on it, so if you’re interested in the show head on over and check it out.

There’s less than 3 weeks to lift off, and I will be live blogging the show here on the Aussie Bloggers website, so you won’t miss out on a minute of the insanity.

Australian Idol have announced they will hold auditions in London and LA for expat Aussies to be the next Australian Idol in addition to its Australian auditions. Apparently the ratings have dropped and after five years of finding talent within Australia, the pool must be getting a bit low.

The audition process for this, and other shows like it, is the best bit of the show I think. Once the top 12 have been finalised it does tend to get a bit predictable especially if the song choice is not your cup of tea and especially if you haven’t connected with a particular singer in the hope that they will win.

Another part of the show that I liked was Mark Holden but unfortunately it was recently announced he won’t be doing the show this year. He added some kitsch value and humour with his Touchdowns and silly speak but in addition to this he was the only judge, apart from Marcia, to be a singer. Australian Idol is about about singers – not just potential record sellers. None of these contestants will sell records in the long term if they can’t sing and feedback about singing is needed.

The issue of judges aside, by searching for Aussies overseas to potentially give up their life for a few months to come back to Australia to be the next Australian Idol, it will add an extra dimension to the show. They are therefore pretty much guaranteeing an audience who will surely wonder whether this will work or not. If it does perhaps it will keep the show going for another year or two where it might have crashed earlier.

Do you think expat auditions are the answer to reinvigorate Australian Idol?

We started watching the Australian version of So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) a few weeks ago. I’d really enjoyed the American version so I was interested to see what the Australians could do.

Half the fun for me in these reality tv shows is the audition process and overall the audition process for this was much much kinder than the one for Australian Idol. Mind you, there are lots of people out there who have been told they can sing and really can’t, compared to the amount of people who’ve been told they can dance and are not very good at it. Or perhaps the Dance show’s producers are much kinder than Idol’s producers. I’m not sure, and I’d be interested to hear others’ opinions.

The types of judges are different on the two shows too, as there is no Kyle equivalent on SYTYCD – thank goodness. While some of his comments are constructive, a lot are not. But I’m not going to mention Idol any more in this post as that’s over for this year and hopefully for good.

An interesting programming decision happened with SYTYCD being scheduled right next to The Biggest Loser. One minute we’re seeing grossly obese people about to begin a journey to lose weight and get over the being fat mindset compared to very fit, slim people hoping to break into the dance world. But I digress.

As with all reality television shows, there are bloggers who blog about them. I have been guilty of this in the past with Big Brother – ahem – moving right on. I think people blog about reality tv because it is somewhat addictive to watch, the competition gets us interested, some of the people are just unbelievably good bad or bitchy and you just have to share. Some of the reality tv blog posts are as entertaining as the show itself and if you have missed out on an episode, they are a good place to catch up with what happened and get other viewpoints.

Mr Melodicus is blogging SYTYCD Australia and also the US version. He has a good wrapup of the Australian audition, talks about the very emotional pruning process, and the top 20 dancers.

Defamer Australia has the usual snarky (where deserved), but informative summaries, and the comments are interesting too.

TV Tonight also keeps us informed.

Personal blog wrapups are usually a lot more entertaining than the official show’s blog, but then the dancers are pretty busy learning their next dance in the hope they won’t be eliminated this week.

Who do you think will win?

Arena TV has recently announced they will be making an Australian version of the incredibly popular Project Runway series. If you have never seen Project Runway – which is possible as the show airs on Arena TV in Australia – it is a reality tv show where fashion designers put together amazing outfits on tight budgets with limited time.

If you can sew and design, you should put in your application to be on the show today. Applications close at Midnight on Sunday the 9th of March.