Why American Idol is Better Than the Olympics

The marquee event of the Winter Olympics—women's individual figure skating—began last night, and like any good American, I watched American Idol instead for the first two hours. (Yes, I know I'm on vacation. Hey, restaurant critics have to eat on vacation, too.) At 10 p.m., I switched over to figure skating, where NBC had wisely saved the highest-profile skaters for last, but if I had had to choose, we all know which competition I'd pick.

A lot of commentators have wrung their hands over the fact that American Idol beat the real singers of the Grammys in the ratings, then beat out the Olympics in its first week. To me it's the most natural thing in the world. American Idol isn't just better than Olympic figure skating. In many important aspects it is Olympic figure skating.

Why do you watch figure skating? To see an athletic performance, which, pulled off well, is graceful and thrilling and, if pulled off badly, ends in an excruciating wreck. Same thing with American Idol. Idol, with its emphasis on acrobatic note runs of melisma and diva-style performances, has basically made singing into an athletic event (just as modern competitive figure skating has emphasized jumps and athletics over artistry). You wait to see if a singer will nail the falsetto high note at the climax of I Will Always Love You—or go horribly off key—for precisely the same reason you wait to see if a skater will nail that triple toe loop or end up polishing the ice with her butt.

Olympic skating commentary could also use a Simon Cowell. Listening to the skating commentators after two hours watching Idol, you realize that the judges in the reality show are far more, well, realistic. Olympic broadcasts are still run with the mentality that the audience must be told it's watching a great competition even if the skating is sub-par—or they'll change the channel—and so the cheerleading judges shower superlatives on good performances and wishy-washy euphemisms ("She's disappointed, but it's still got to be a thrill for her!") on decent-to-poor ones. (Especially, of course, when it comes to Americans or other audience favorites.) When it comes to Olympic skating, everyone is Paula Abdul.

Finally, American Idol is exactly what the Olympics purports to be: a celebration of amateurism. Its contestants are unpolished, unknown and hungry. The Olympics are still about "amateurs," but so much money goes into training, marketing and establishing the top stars' brands that for the audience, they are indistinguishable from pro sports. And star skaters are quickly pimped out to hokey "exhibitions" and televised specials, so you can't claim that skating is the purer, less commercialized competition: reality TV cheese has nothing on the skating world of fromage.

Idol embodies exactly what used to make the Olympics thrilling—and it's about competing for pop stardom, which is a more relevant goal to viewers today than landing on the cover of a Wheaties box. It shouldn't be surprising that the ratings have dropped. But Sasha and Irina can get those viewers back someday. They'll just have to do the next edition of Skating with Celebrities.