Television singing competitions as a contemporary phenomenon

The concept of TV's singing talent shows of the past decade has varied from the concept we were used to seeing in the last decade of the 20th century. It is a new approach where the audience is drawn into the contest by participating in decision- making of who goes through to the next round and who will ultimately win. The goal of this thesis is to prove (or disprove) my assumption that these talent shows are a contemporary phenomenon. I will attempt to define the most popular shows, describe their inner workings, look for the common features and compare their concepts. Verify the use of TV as an interactive media with an option to vote via a person's mobile phone to improve the ratings. To compare these shows with those from the second half of the 20th century. Reasons why people like to watch these TV singing talent shows and what target audience are these shows appealing to