Interesting article in Variety about the American Idol phenomenon and its resulting economic impact. Fox wins big as 30 second commercials in the show’s season finale will run $1.3 million (Superbowl commercials cost $2.5 million)–but the show creates many other winners, also: magazines (especially celebrity mags which cover the new stars created by the show), music (Sony BMG’s RCA Label group has sold more than 19 million albums and 4.5 million singles of American Idol compilations or songs), Cingular (the show generated 41.5 million text messages from weekly votes), etc. Reminds me of the iPod economy and the MySpace beast.
