If they can make a success of cameras following people round cooking dinner (come dine with me etc..) , doing some decorating (DIY SOS, changing rooms etc..) or even making wedding dresses (thelma's gypsy girls) then I'm sure they could follow some bands/solo artists as they try to break through and make it interesting.
All those shows are my idea of Hell
I barely turn on the tele nowadays because this is what passes for entertainment. Pseudo reality to lull the miserable masses.
Please keep song writing far, far away from such hokum.
Pandering will get us no where.
Lets look at this from a different angle. (I am typing while I think here, so if it falls flat ho hum!). There is no "scriptwriter-factor" or "Britain's got new novel writing talent". Fact is, the Singer songwriter is, in the art world, an oddity. Screen writers don't act out their work. Authors are known by a name on the cover. The work takes precedence . But, with the singer songwriter, there is this overlap, where artistic creation is adjoined with presentation. We are the makers and the showers. Even an artist shows his work, not him or herself.
This is why we even have the issue of authenticity from musicians. It is a fascination and important debate, but I like to step back and say there are auteurs and there are singers. Both can be good, both can be bad.
A talent show is a way of putting pretty people with decent karaoke voices on the tele alongside the mandatory (and oft cruel) car wrecks, in order to keep the TV viewers hooked long enough to see the (wildly expensive) adverts every 15 minutes. Singers work for such things... songwriters don't. Our songs need attention, multiple listens, a discerning ear.
And furthermore, songwriters often only appeal to certain markets. Some may think Dylan a genius, other a bore. Metalica rock some, not others. Cobain draws obsession and confusion in unequal measure (more to the latter if we were to play early Nirvana to a random selection of the public no doubt!
Again, pandering is not the way. Writing to please everyone pleases no one. And primetime cares only for ratings.
