American Idol Syesha's Exit Interview: Even She Thought Happy Feet Song Was Weird

In her exit interview press conference after getting ejected from American Idol Wednesday, Sarasota native Syesha Mercado confirmed something this critic suspected from the moment she finished her performances Tuesday.

Producers' decision to have her sing a song from the animated film Happy Feet was awfully odd, indeed. (See it here)

"I was like, 'That's strange'...most of the song was backup singing," said Mercado, who faced reporters by telephone conference call Thursday. "It was weird, because most of the song, I wasn't supposed to sing."

After that performance, Mercado said she knew she was leaving Idol. "I got too many bad comments from the judges to keep me there. So I accepted what was, and I moved on. And I made peace with it."

Mercado insisted during the call that she and her family were fine with the turn of events, even as some reporters noted she seemed to embody the Idol ethic of flowering as a star during the competition and producers' seemed to sabotage her performance by forcing her to sing that awful song.

As she said during her Tampa Bay publicity tour, initial problems with her voice freaked her out a bit and kept her from getting comfortable on the show until later. But that became a lucky turn, allowing her to continually raise her game each week as other contestants burned out or crumbled under the strain.

What seems obvious: a big part of suceeding on Idol is dealing with the stress of the competition. "I separated that fine line, between overworking and doing so much to point you're unfocused, not enjoying yourself, and doing enough and trusting yourself and letting go and tasking it all in. So my goal every week was to feel satisfied after every show."

So what will her first album sound like? "I’m like a black Christina Aguilera/Alicia Keyes.  I definitely can see myself putting together a Christina Aguilera album, the one that she just recently did – and an Alicia Keyes album like The Diary of Alicia Keyes.  I’m definitely into a lot of the – I like pop, and I like R&B, and I like the old school/new school thing.  So I’m growing as an artist.  I’m evolving.  And I’m glad that I did do American Idol because people were able to see that transition that I went through, and I’m still learning more about myself everyday."

It's well known that Mercado's father struggled with addiction problems when she was a child, getting arrested multiple times: "Having my dad struggle through that, it really, really – it really made me sad a lot of my life.  It actually made me understand people more and be more….  I told myself that I’m not going to let this determine what my future is going to be.  I’m going to do something good.  And I’m going to help my dad and encourage him and be there for him.  And I’m going to make him proud, so that he wants to make me proud, and that’s exactly what he’s doing now."

How did the hard times define her? "The reason I even brought up my struggle in the beginning, at my first audition, is because my past doesn’t determine who I am.  And I don’t feel ashamed of telling encouraging uplifting stories to people because they’re going to – everybody’s going to find out eventually my story.  And some people are going to get the story wrong, and it already has been gotten wrong a lot.  People are like, “Oh, you’re homeless.”  I’m like, “What?  What are you talking about?”  Ask me what my story is."

Right now, her story is about rehearsing for the Idol tour and preparing for whatever opportunities may come next. Since past experience indicates Idols don't have much time to make their mark before fans move on to the next crop of contestants, she's got a serious challenge ahead. 
   

Kelly Clarkson Most Successful Idol Recording Artist Ever, According to Nielsen Co.

The experts in crunching pop culture entertainment data, the Nielsen Company (yes, they do the TV ratings, too) have come up with a raft of Idol-focused data dissecting this TV-fed pop culture phenomenon -- probably to help those of us struggling to pull interesting story ideas out of the long-predicted David vs. David finale next week.

My thoughts: Remember when I said pop and rock stars make more money for Idol than R&B stars? And isn't it surprising to see that Idol's biggest audience block is twice as old as the competitors? And is it a sign of erosion that debut albums from the last two Idol winners haven't sold $1-million copies?

Here's a sample of Nielsen's reports:

TV Ratings -- People age 35-49 watched American Idol Season 7 the most, making up almost 29% of the total audience.  The most watched episode this season was the premiere episode on Tuesday, 1/15/08 averaging 33 million viewers. American Idol’s highest viewership was Season 5 (Taylor Hicks and Chris Daughtry's season), where more than 30 million people watched on average, compared to 12 million the first season and 27 million this current season.

Mobile -- The average American Idol participant voted via text message 38 times in April 2008. Women tend to vote via text with greater frequency than men: in April 2008, female voters of American Idol submitted 44% more text-message votes than their male counterparts.

Music -- Kelly Clarkson is the best selling American Idol contestant with album and digital download sales of 18.9 million.  Carrie Underwood is second with album and digital download sales of 15.7 million. Until 2006, when the winner was Taylor Hicks, each season's "American Idol" champ sold at least 1 million copies on his or her debut album. Last year's winner, Jordin Sparks, hasn't reached that level yet, either. 

Online -- Male contestants David Cook, David Archuleta and Jason Castro dominate the show’s consumer discussion online with 14.3% and 12.5% and 10.5% buzz volume, respectively.  The most popular American Idol contestant from opinions and feedback from Hey! Nielsen’s online panel is Carrie Underwood.  Web traffic to American Idol websites saw the most unique visitors in March 2007. 

Advertising -- During 2007, American Idol featured 4,349 product placement occurrences.  So far in 2008, the number of placements is surging—the program racked up 3,291 occurrences the first three months of 2008 alone.

Idol Artist Record Sales and Digital Download Totals:

Kelly Clarkson               9.4 million     9.4 million   
Carrie Underwood         8.5 million     7.2 million   
Clay Aiken                    4.8 million     469,000
Chris Daughtry             4 million       5.2 million   
Ruben Studdard            2.5 million     250,000
Fantasia                      2.3 million     698,000
Bo Bice                        721,000 474,000
Jordin Sparks               717,000 n/a   
Taylor Hicks                 702,000 344,000
Katharine McPhee        371,000 1.1 million   
Blake Lewis                 291,000 n/a   
Justin Guarini             143,000 28,000

Highest Selling Idol Artist Albums

Carrie Underwood  Some Hearts (2005) 6.4 million   
Kelly Clarkson    Breakaway (2004)      6.0 million   
Daughtry           Daughtry (2007)         4.0 million   
Clay Aiken        Measure of a Man (2003) 2.8 million    

Should Local TV Reporters Disclose When They are Reciting Someone Else's Words?

It was something I noticed when I decided to take a closer look at the health reporting on local TV stations.

Often, stories would present sources without identifying where they lived. Or the piece would unfold over long minutes without showing the reporter with the subjects or at any of the locations.

For the educated viewer, these were giveaway clues: these anchors were likely voicing a script prepared somewhere else, using footage shot somewhere else. A few Google searches later, I found several stories where local health reporters had simply re-voiced stories, almost word-for-word, provided by news services such as Ivanhoe Broadcast News and Medstar Television.

Typically, the reporters don't reveal these sources in their pieces, which I think leads viewers to believe they are reporting these stories themselves. It's a practice TV stations have indulged for many years, but I've never felt it was totally honest with the viewer, so I wrote a column dissecting the issue for today newspaper.

I understand why it happens: TV stations want their health franchises to appear regularly -- usually too often to rely on stories turned by a single reporter. At WFTS-Ch. 28, health reporter Linda Hurtado also happens to be the station's 5:30 p.m. news anchor, which makes negotiating the workload a challenge. And producers have often written scripts for reporters and news anchors to voice.

But at a time when new outlets are handling more sources of information than ever, we'll have to be more careful about disclosing where that material comes from -- particularly when it involves taking stories wholesale which are repeated, word-for-word, at other stations.

Here's a story on the use of art to help those suffering from Alzheimer's disease that ran on WFTS.

And here's the same story on a station in Moline, Ill. And also the same story done in Orlando; though the text on their Web site is different, the video uses the same script.

Two Examples of an Important TV Truth: Never Lose it on a TV News Set

I don't know why experienced TV journalists never learn this lesson. But the current online climate makes it plain: famous anchors lose their tempers on set at their own peril.

Industry veterans know that production staffers, who often earn many times less the salaries of the highly-paid, high-strung primadonnas losing it publicly, love to secretly roll tape when a famous face is having a tantrum. Rest assured that the embarrassing video will surface later, plunked online by someone who got a bootleg tape from a friend of a friend and can't wait to share it with cyberspace.

Here is Bill O'Reilly blowing his top when he was an anchor on Inside Edition, apparently upset that someone didn't write a tagline capping the end of the show, just before proving that he didn't really need the script, anyway.

Here's the F-word heard around cyberspace -- New York anchor Sue Simmons loosing the F-word at the end of a promo she thought was being taped, but was actually airing live.

    

CBS New Fall Season: Five News Shows, More Lame Comedies and More Bruckheimer

What does it mean when the biggest news about a major network's new fall schedule is that it didn't lose a marginal comedy to a competitor?

Judge for yourself as CBS unveils its fall 2008 schedule to the industry today, with the big news that floundering Julia Louis Dreyfus comedy The New Adventures of Old Christine is not taking the Scrubs route and defecting to ABC. Instead, it will kick off a new hour of comedy at 8 p.m. Wednesdays sure to extend the reach of mediocre sitcoms that have taken over the net's Monday night schedule.

Without a Trace moves to CBS' death spot at 10 p.m. Tuesdays; this timeslot killed Jericho and Cane, wonder what it will do to an established hit like Trace? Rules of Engagement is held for midseason, giving David Spade the fall to occupy himself.

Among the new shows, we have a British import from CSI mastermind Jerry Bruckheimer about a guy who investigates scientific oddities called Eleventh Hour, Jay Mohr and Paula Marshall as recent divorcees trying to start new relationships in Project Gary; Simon Baker trying series TV for the third time in a rip-off of USA Network's Psych about a super-observant guy who solves crimes called The Mentalist, and a comedy which seems ripped from Meet the Parents about a guy who keeps screwing up while trying to impress his fiancee's parents called Worst Week.

See a clip of the British version of Eleventh Hour -- which I wish they would have just brought to America -- starring Patrick Stewart as the investigative dude here.

These programs seem to play to CBS' strengths: mediocre comedies and formulaic action/dramas. I'll get the spin at 4 p.m. when CBS fires up a webcast of its annual upfront presentation at Carnegie Hall in NYC.

What has bitten the dust: Kid Nation, Shark, Moonlight, Jericho and Viva Laughlin.

Here's the fall sked, new shows in bold:

MONDAY
8:00-8:30 PM              THE BIG BANG THEORY
8:30-9:00 PM              HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
9:00-9:30 PM              TWO AND A HALF MEN
9:30-10:00 PM           WORST WEEK (N)
10:00-11:00 PM          CSI: MIAMI

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM              NCIS
9:00-10:00 PM           THE MENTALIST (N)
10:00-11:00 PM          WITHOUT A TRACE (New Time)

WEDNESDAY
8:00-8:30 PM              THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE (New Time)
8:30-9:00 PM             PROJECT GARY (N)
9:00-10:00 PM            CRIMINAL MINDS
10:00-11:00 PM          CSI: NY

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM              SURVIVOR
9:00-10:00 PM            CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION
10:00-11:00 PM         ELEVENTH HOUR (N)

FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM              GHOST WHISPERER
9:00-10:00 PM           THE EX LIST (N)
10:00-11:00 PM          NUMB3RS

SATURDAY
8:00-9:00 PM              CRIMETIME SATURDAY
9:00-10:00 PM            CRIMETIME SATURDAY
10:00-11:00 PM          48 HOURS MYSTERY

SUNDAY
7:00-8:00 PM              60 MINUTES
8:00-9:00 PM              THE AMAZING RACE
9:00-10:00 PM            COLD CASE
10:00-11:00 PM          THE UNIT (New Time)

How to Save Florida Newspapers: It's the Advertising, Dude

  Editor and Publisher has a pretty interesting story today on the newspaper industry in Florida and how one of the states that have historically been most hospitable to newspapers has become a much tougher environment.

It's a long piece, but it tells a simple story: Florida newspapers are getting squeezed by the implosion of the real estate market, the disintegrating classified ads business, rising newsprint prices and an audience that is aging faster than it is growing.

Besides talking about the recent reductions we've been implementing in staff and size of the paper, the piece also references cuts at Media General's Tampa news operations, especially the Tribune, and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune down south.

Newspapers' biggest problems right now are that nearly all the methods in which we have traditionally made money are under challenge. Advertising is down, classified is down, readership is flat or declining and new platforms such as the Web and TBT depend on the reporting resources of the newspaper newsroom without generating the necessary profits to help keep all the staffing.

I'm not sure anyone in the country has found a solution. I do know that, as cool as it would be to see folks in the community rally by purchasing a newspaper subscription or two, what newspapers really need is for advertisers to purchase more ads -- including those of you who might place a classified ad.

In other words, if you really believe in newspapers and want to see them continue, you might help most by turning away from Craigslist and Monster.com and paying to place your help wanted, car for sale and apartment for rent ads in your local daily.

It won't be free, or close to it. But you will help save an important informational resource.   

ABC's New Fall Schedule: Scrubs, David E. Kelley on Mars and a Beauty Pageant From Ashton Kutcher and Tyra Banks

You know you're in trouble when the big fall announcement for a network's new fall schedule begins with a long speech on revaluing ratings figures.

But that's how ABC chose to kick off its press conference today announcing its slate of nerw shows for the 2008-09 TV season. Perhaps the anticlimatic vibe emerged because ABC has just two new shows coming this fall and three new shows planned for midseason, including an import from NBC, Scrubs.

The new fall shows: Opportunity Knocks is a so-called "alternative" game show developed by Ashton Kutcher (is this guy the new Aaron Spelling, or what?) featuring a truck that rolls up to a home and inhstantly quizzes the inhabitants on their family. Life on Mars is an Americanized version of the British series about a cop who finds himself mysteriously transported back to 1973 after a car crash -- the minds behind this adaptation, years in the making, include Boston Legal creator David E. Kelley and West Wing executive producer/director Tommy Schlamme.

Scrubs, saved from cancellation by NBC because Disney-owned production studio Touchstone Television makes it, will appears in midseason -- along with a new animated comedy from King of the Hill mastermind Mike Judge (The Goode Family) and a yet-untitled beauty pageant from Kutcher and America's Next Top Model Tyra Banks (who is on track to be the next Oprah)

Among the shows fully and finally dead: Miss Guided (sniff!), Women's Murder Club, Cavemen (yay!), Carpoolers, Big Shots, October Road (another yay!), Men In Trees and Cashmere Mafia.

A few tidbits: Scrubs is expected to finish its run with 18 episodes on ABC. They won't be reprising the reality series Oprah's Big Give; their stated reason: Oprah doesn't want to do another installment. Kelley is expected to move over to Boston Legal and write nearly all of that show's 13 episodes next season, likely it's last season on the network.

Here's the schedule planned for this fall, with the new shows in bold....

MONDAY: 8:00 p.m.  “Dancing with the Stars”
9:30 p.m. “Samantha Who?”
10:00 p.m. “Boston Legal”
 
TUESDAY: 8:00 p.m. “Opportunity Knocks”
9:00 p.m. “Dancing with the Stars the Results Show”
10:00 p.m. “Eli Stone”

WEDNESDAY: 8:00 p.m.  “Pushing Daisies”   
9:00 p.m. “Private Practice”
10:00 p.m. “Dirty Sexy Money”

THURSDAY: 8:00 p.m. “Ugly Betty”
9:00 p.m. “Grey’s Anatomy”
10:00 p.m. “Life on Mars”

FRIDAY: 8:00 p.m. “Wife Swap”
9:00 p.m. “Supernanny”
10:00 p.m. “20/20”
 
SATURDAY: 8:00 p.m. “Saturday Night College Football”

SUNDAY: 7:00 p.m. “America’s Funniest Home Videos”
8:00 p.m. “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”
9:00 p.m. “Desperate Housewives”
10:00 p.m. “Brothers & Sisters”

Heeere's Jimmy: Former Saturday Night Live Star Jimmy Fallon to Take Over Conan O'Brien's 12:30 a.m. Slot

Over a telephone conference call line from New York City, he sounded a bit like a nervous teacher meeting a new class for the first time.

But by the end of the noontime press conference today confirming headlines which had broken over the weekend -- that former Saturday Night Live star Jimmy Fallon was taking over the 12:30 a.m. timeslot on NBC once held by Conan O'Brien -- the baby-faced comic was cracking jokes like an old school standup working the Catskills.

"In my kindergarten yearbook, the photo said 'Most likely to take over for David Letterman'...my principal was Nostradamus," Fallon said, laughing. "I talked to my wife, and she's very excited...she left me a note this morning saying, 'Nice knowing you.' So she knows it's going to take a lot of hard work."

Joined by NBC suits and executive producer Lorne Michaels, Fallon admitted he doesn't know a lot about his new gig. Like when it's going to start ("Sometime in the first six months of '09," cracked Michaels. "Or the second six months."). Whether he'll have a band and/or sidekick. Who is going to be on the production team. Or what the name of the show will be, beyond keeping the term "Late Night".

Indeed, NBC's relationship with outgoing Tonight Show host Jay Leno -- who is scheduled to be replaced by O'Brien in 2009, making the Late Night timeslot available -- has made much of this situation uncertain, as Michaels admitted during today's press conference. As early as last July, NBC executives were making nervous noises about keeping Leno happy, indicating they hadn't yet figured out the current Tonight Show host's new role in a world where O'Brien would be taking over his timeslot.

"They're changing the 'With Conan O'Brien part," quipped Fallon. "I'm going to dye my hair red and get lifts in my shoes."

Nightmare scenarios have the current top-rated host in late night -- who seems too young and too much of workaholic to actually retire -- heading to ABC for a post-Nightline spot or to the Fox network, which does not have a successful late night program. But delaying the switch would mean paying O'Brien a  sizable penalty and watching that top-rated late night star become available to switch networks in 2009.

Fallon's announcement would seem to add a bit of pressure to the situation, adding less incentive for NBC to change its plans and more questions across the industry about when they will resolve something with Leno, already.

Michaels seemed to downplay that notion today, emerging as the unlikeliest of programing powerhouses at fourth-place NBC. When Fallon's show debuts, he will likely have executive producer credit on Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey's buzzed-about sitcom 30 Rock, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien and Fallon's Late Night.

Playing the wise man onstage, Michaels emphasized several times that new late night programs get boatloads of criticism in their early years -- as O'Brien and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel did. "We’re in a big fight here in network television," said Michaels. "The enemy isn’t other networks but Internet videos and guitar hero…The show has to be re-invented, and if you're up for the challenge, it's an exciting time."

Click the link below to tread the official press release:

Stuck in the '80s on TV Show Themes: Mr. T Impersonations and My Valerie Bertinelli Fixation

This was something Stuck in the '80s guru Steve Spears had been threatening to do for a while.

And with his usual compatriot Sean Daly stuck in continual concert/assignment hell -- from roller coasters in Myrtle Beach to Kanye West and Radiohead -- Thursday was the perfect time to delve into a subject I had only touched on briefly five months ago: The Best '80s TV Theme Songs.

I'm always honored and a little hyper when Steve lets me play with the cool kids on his Stuck in the '80s podcast (I did, after all, wear parachute pants AND a Jheri Curl while playing in a band back then. And I can't believe I just admitted it here!). So I cut loose with a little Mr. T impersonation while talking about the A Team, and even admitted my lifelong jones for Valerie Bertinelli and Sarah Jessica Parker.

As you may recall, I did a story way back in December about the lack of theme songs on TV that seemed to strike a nerve with readers. But since the glory days of TV themes songs were really in the '60s and '70s -- Gilligan's Island, the Brady Bunch, The Jeffersons, All in the Family, etc. -- I didn't talk much about '80s gems such as Square Pegs, The A Team and Hill Street Blues.

  I'm not going to dish on the actual order of the songs -- gotta listen to the podcast for that -- but we tackle the big question right off: Was the '80s the last great decade for TV theme songs?

Feel free to answer that question here, blogfriends.

Here's one of my faves courtesy of YouTube:

 

Syesha's Scrapbook: Deggans Tries His Hand at Photojournalism

The Pulitzer committee doesn't need to be alerted just yet. But I had more fun -- and success-- than I expected shooting pictures of American Idol contestant Syesha Mercado's visit to the Tampa Bay area Friday.

Tracking the visit itself was like walking the Bataan Death March -- cruising to Tampa at 7 a.m., Sarasota by lunchtime, then back to St. Petersburg in rush hour traffic to hassle with the crowd at Tropicana Field so I could watch Syesha nail a national anthem she's sung at baseball games since she was 9 years old.

A few things did stick out while I was shadowing the Last Woman Standing in TV's most popular singing contest:

-- Syesha pretty much admitted that she doesn't listen to the judges, telling reporters her vocal coaches have more impact on her creative decisions in the competition.

-- Syesha's dad Jose said he didn't mind the barbs directed his way by idol judge Simon Cowell because most of his criticisms are just a shtick, anyway.

-- Idol is still a phenomenon, and huge draw locally for WTVT-Ch. 13. Still, it was a little surprising to see the amount of news resources the station devoted to covering her visit, including two remote trucks and their helicopter.

-- Sarasota's 70-year-old mayor, Lou Ann Palmer, reportedly did three handstands last Tuesday, during a massive Idol party hosted by an area radio station at Mattison's restaurant.

-- When Palmer failed to hold a handstand on her first try during Mercado's visit to the Ringling Museum, the mayor cracked "I pulled a Brooke," in referenced to ejected Idol Brooke White, who had two false starts while competing on the show.

-- Reality was rarely good enough for idol's camera crew; Mercado had to redo her entrance at WTVT twice and redo her departure from the stations three times before they got the footage the producer wanted. Palmer had to say the name of the song Randy Jackson picked for Syesha to sing Tuesday four times before she got it right. 

Here's a host of photos from my time Friday. Click on any photo to see an enlarged, more detailed display.

Big Changes Coming for the St. Petersburg Times on May 19

The St. Petersburg Times will be seriously redefined on May 19.

That's when the paper will implement changes designed to emphasize material readers have told us they value most in the weekday paper and bring down costs. The big changes: Floridian, our daily features section, will publish just on Sundays, while our business section will merge with our B section metro news in a new section. TV listings, comics, Dear Abby, crossword puzzles and the more popular syndicated elements of our features section will move to a new section called BayLink.

As always, when circumstances compel the Times to reimagine the newspaper, executives have tried to husband resources while emphasizing elements readers will like in new ways. So there are new features added to the Taste section -- including a weekly restaurant review -- a return of the color weather map, four new comics and the move of our daily entertainment report, The Juice, to the inside front page of our A section, among other changes. The Sunday paper, where much of our readership's attention falls, will change little.

Leaders here are hoping BayLink -- which combines classifieds, syndicated features and news content in a section they're imagining as newspaper's closest thing to a shopping mall -- will be seen an innovative effort at collecting material readers want in one section. 

Among the big elements which will disappear: traditional stock listings (some will be available in a new format; many papers have eliminated them, because the information is so readily available online), the Road Test column, the Parenting column (though more parenting coverage is planned, both online and for the paper), the Working section and the Sew Simple feature.

There will also be a half-page in Sunday Floridian featuring much of the material featured in this space, called, surprisingly enough, The Feed.

Top staffers at the paper have been working on these changes for months, with an eye toward creating a more streamlined paper during the week, eliminating material readers may not value so much, and, in the midst of a serious recession, cutting costs. It is the second time we've redesigned the paper since 2006 -- coming close on the heels of the Tampa Tribune's reconfiguration in March -- and the open question is always how will readers react to paying the same price for a smaller product? 

Our executive editor Neil Brown will introduce readers to these changes with a column on Sunday, and there will be stories in the paper each day next week outlining how each section will change and where people can find the material they've come to enjoy.

It's a tough spot for a media critic to negotiate; I'm not an ombudsman with a contract guaranteeing employment no matter what I write, so I've tried to respect the organization's need to plan while pulling together this blog post to give anyone who reads this space early notice on the coming changes.

I've written before in this space about how the Times' business model ensuring our independence -- the fact that we're owned by a non-profit, the Poynter Institute -- has given us a bit more time to deal with the financial forces that are dramatically transforming other newspapers. But we're not insulated from the pressure, and these changes are evidence of that fact.

Looks like we're all stepping into a new era together, starting May 19.

Another American Idol Surprise: Sarasota-Bred Finalist Syesha Mercado is a Playful, Poised Star-in-the-Making

TAMPA -- This was not the Syesha Mercado I've seen tackling the big songs each week on American Idol.

That woman, appearing on my TV each week belting out classic diva tunes despite all advice to the contrary, is by turns intensely serious and emotional -- focused on nailing the increasingly showy tunes she picks each week for America's biggest talent competition.

But the Syesha who emerged during the start of her daylong local publicity tour of the Tampa Bay area this morning was so much more appealing. Funny. Humble. Given to playful teasing and spot-on impressions -- she cracked up the crew on WFLZ-FM's morning show with a dead-on impersonation of Idol judge Paula Abdul -- Mercado seems born to bask in the attention afforded a major singing star.

So why does so little of this superstar charisma make it onto the Idol stage during the competition?

"American Idol kind of put me in a stage fright mode," said Mercado, speaking backstage at the studios of Tampa Fox affiliate WTVT-Ch. 13, where the station had assembled a phalanx of media to document the return of a local hero. "I've learned to loosen up a bit and go with the flow."

By 8 a.m. this morning, Mercado was deep into a day of media appearances and public performances that would challenge the most experienced performer. As her gigantic stretch limousine pulled up before WTVT's Kennedy Blvd. headquarters, she had already knocked off two radio interviews, singing snatches of the National Anthem she would recreate tonight at the Rays baseball game in St. Petersburg and firing off a dead-on impersonation of Tina Turner.

At WTVT, a small knot of fans culled from the station's staff waved signs before a makeshift red carpet, providing the kind of celebratory greeting that will look good for Idol's cameras.

Inside the Fox affiliate, reporters from People magazine, Sarasota magazine, Orlando's fox affiliate and host of area newspapers jockeyed for good photos while the station's Idol correspondent Charlie Belcher goofed around with Mercado. And because cameras were on hand filming this for Idol's Welcome Home show next week, reality wasn't quite good enough: Mercado stepped out of her limo twice and re-enacted leaving the station three times, to catch the perfect shots.

Ask Mercado whether consistent criticism from the judges has ever affected her -- she is, after all, the only contestant this season to land in the Bottom Three of audience votes multiple times and survive to stand among the Top Three contenders -- and you learn that she pays far more attention to what her vocal coaches advise than what Abdul Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell offer.

"The judges say stuff to me, and it doesn't affect me...I never take it to heart," she says, expertly directing her attention to each member of the media crowded around her while speaking. "Paula is really cool -- she came backstage and told me the other day 'Simon liked your performance, he just didn't have anything else to say.' I'm like, why didn't he just say that he liked it on national television?"

Mercado even let a bit of showbiz dish drop, inadvertently; admitting that she can't get permission to sing a version of Beyonce's Listen because Cowell remains in a tiff with the singer. Back in 2005, he criticized Beyonce's figure and singing ability in an interview for Esquire magazine, promoting the singer's dad to challenge Cowell to a competition to develop the most successful singing group.

"That last show, he kind of...(nixed the song)," said Mercado. "Simon doesn't like to apologize to people, so..."

Mercado blamed her early, ice queen image on an illness early in the competition which forced her to conserve her voice, communicating with people mostly through rudimentary hand signals and written notes. Her turning point came during a performance of Andrew Lloyd Weber's One Rock N Roll Too Many, which allowed her to be a little flirty and theatrical -- separating herself from the experience by playing a bit of a role.

"Being on vocal rest kind of dampened who I am," she said. "It kinda made me silent -- you can only hold up note cards (to communicate) for so long. But slowly and surely, I came into my own."

Certainly, she looked born to the role this morning, fielding every question with enthusiasm and sass, jousting a bit with Belcher on WTVT and basking in the chorus of camera shutters set off every time she moved to a new position on WTVT's set (she even graciously handled WTVT's request that she read an endless list of on air promos, sure to fill their airwaves leading to the Idol finale).

Later today, she'll head for her old high school, Booker High School in Sarasota, headline a short performance at the Ringling Museum (rumors are, some folks are leaving work early to check it out) and angle back to St. Petersburg for the Rays game.

Something tells me, this woman who has been angling for a showbiz career since she was 9 years old -- singing the National Anthem at spring training games for the Pittsburgh Pirates -- will be just as energetic at 7 p.m. as she was at 7 a.m., well aware that she's living her dreams in a way few performers ever achieve.

"People tell me to smile more...but YOU stand up here and try to smile," said Mercado, noting how hard its been to show her true performing personality on Idol's super-visible stage. "This experience is so amazing, I just don't want to go home. sometimes I don't smile...because its just so nerve wracking."

Apologies for the low-quality photos...but I was forced to shoot pictures myself. Click on any one to enlarge.    

Evil Jason Explains His Performance: Castro Swears He Didn't Sandbag American Idol

In his obligatory exit interview Thursday, fallen American Idol contestant Jason Castro told reporters he didn't intentionally sabotage his performance Tuesday night -- despite forgetting the words to a classic Bob Dylan song and online rumors he mouthed the words "don't vote" during the show.

"Yesterday, I wanted to win and the day before," Castro told journalists during a telephone press conference Thursday. "What it came down to is just my inexperience...Once we doubled up on songs, I wasn't really being able to focus. And both my songs we just -- my mind was split, and I just couldn't deliver either/or, and so I think that's what it came down to."

Castro admitted that when he auditioned for Idol, he had only performed live in something like five shows, none lasting longer than 30 minutes. That's a marked difference from the resume of competitors such as Sarasota native Syesha Mercado, who has been singing publicly since she was a child and even appeared on a previous reality TV talent competition, ABC-TV's short-lived The One.

"I'd never even learned a song all the way through, and now trying to learn two in a week has been tough," said Castro, who some critics -- okay, me -- dubbed The New Sanjaya for his obvious lack of vocal skill and performing ability. Still, the singer said he actually told viewers to "Vote" twice during the show, and it just looked like he said "Don't vote."

And he also admitted one other thing: When host Ryan Seacrest noted he looked relieved to be leaving the show Wednesday night, he had a good point.

"I was really starting to fear the week ahead, if I made it," he said. "How was I going to do three songs? I can't even do two right, and with the hometown visit, it was just going to be a lot of work, even though it would have been so much fun....My natural reaction, I just really felt relieved, like the pressure was off."

So the question remains: does it help Idol's reputation that such an inexperienced performer washed out before the final three, or hurt the show that he made it far as he did?

A Bonus From Evil Jason's Departure From American Idol: Syesha Comes Home to the Tampa Bay Area Friday

Now it can be told: In addition to finally ridding the show of its Dead Singer Walking, Jason Castro's departure tonight from American Idol brings another bit of good tidings.

Syesha Mercado is coming home to the Tampa Bay area on Friday.

Longtime Idol fans will recall that the show always films a segment close to the show's end where the finalists head home for a burst of adulation from their hometown crowds, collecting keys to the city, adoring speeches from former teachers and lots of good wishes from adoring crowds.

Because the closest Fox affiliate to Mercado's Sarasota hometown is Tampa's WTVT-Ch. 13, she'll spend a fair amount of time in Tampa, stopping by WFLZ-FM's MJ Morning Show Friday at 7 a.m., heading over to WTVT's Good Day Tampa Bay morning show by 8 a.m. and stopping by her alma mater, Booker High School in Sarasota by 12:30 p.m. for a mini-parade and private concert.

By 2:45 p.m. she's scheduled to hop aboard WTVT's SkyFox helicopter for a ride to the Ringling Museum where she'll present another short concert for the public. By 6:30 p.m., she'll be in St. Petersburg to sing the National Anthem for the Tampa Bay Rays game at Tropicana Field.

I'm assuming that she'll be in a coma in a hotel room bed somewhere by 8 p.m.

No wonder Castro was so glad to be hitting the road tonight, and the remaining contestants look so tired. It seems the life of a potential Idol leaves little room for small things. Like sleep. And more than an hour spent in any one location.

6:45 a.m.: In-studio appearances on WFLZ-FM 93.3’s MJ Morning Show and WMTX-FM 100.7’s Nancy and Chris show.

8 a.m.: WTVT's Good Day Tampa Bay.

10:30 a.m.: Downtown Bradenton appearance between City Hall and the Manatee River.

11:15 a.m.: Autograph session at the AT&T store at 4708 Cortez Road, Bradenton.

12:30 p.m. or thereabouts: At her alma mater, Booker High School in Sarasota, for a mini-parade and private concert.

2:45 p.m.: She's scheduled to hop aboard WTVT's SkyFox helicopter for a ride to the Ringling Museum where she'll present another short concert for the public.

6:57 p.m.: She'll sing the National Anthem at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg before the Rays game against the Los Angeles Angels. The game starts at 7:10 p.m. and tickets start at $9 at 1-888-326-7297. raysbaseball.com.

It's Official: American Idol Is Now an Endurance Test -- For the Singers AND the Viewers

It's awfully hard to write about a singing competition that isn't a singing competition any more.

But you only had to look at the worn faces of Jason Castro and David Cook to see the toll life at the center of American Idol's white-hot pop culture flame has taken on contestants this year.

And just like classic disaster movies always showed heroes rising to deal with danger (or not), the unique pressure cooker inside the Idol showbiz juggernaut has brought surprising reactions from all involved. In the final weeks, Syesha Mercado has emerged as the Hillary Clinton of the bunch -- refusing to take the long walk despite landing in the bottom three more than any contestant left and taking a load of crap from Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell no contestant with her voice should endure.

Indeed, it doesn't matter how many unfair criticisms Jackson and Cowell lob her way -- bravo to Syesha for breaking into tears just after Jackson's inexplicably harsh assessment of her second song, literally forcing Cowell to paste on a smile and compliment her (the Bratty Brit seems very wary of kicking contestants when they are already down). Syesha has found her groove and seems to be loving her success, like a condemned man who keeps snagging last-minute stays of execution.

David Archuleta, who still looks like he might hyperventilate himself into a coma after every performance, clocked the best vocals of the night, managing to wrap his white-boy soul around two of the most-covered tunes in rock music -- Stand By Me and Love Me Tender -- in a way that surely had Simon Cowell scurrying offstage to check on the rights for the youngster's post-Idol debut album.

David Cook seemed to sleepwalk through his songs, Hungry Like the Wolf and Teenage Wasteland, too drained to even bother ripping off new arrangements from iTunes. As Cowell noted and he seemed to realize, he did well enough to get past this week -- so why bust a gut actually, you know, performing?

And there's Jason. Castro seemed to be begging the audience to send him home, lurching through a wedding band version of I Shot the Sheriff and committing a cardinal Idol sin during Mr. Tambourine Man: forgetting his words. If Entertainment Weekly's piece last week on the show is to be believed, Castro has one foot out the door, already.

I'm begging America to help him the rest of the way. He wants it. Really.

EXTRA NOTE: A buddy who does PR for Luna Guitars, a Tampa company which makes guitars designed by a local artist who switched from work in stained glass, says the company provided all the Idols with custom-made guitars for tonight's show. Yes, that cool-looking guitar Jason used to scratch out his awful version of the Bob Marley classic was made by a company based right here in the Tampa Bay area.

I hear they're whipping up a left-handed one for rocker boy David Cook as you read this. Check out a recent feature on Luna Guitars in the Times here, and keep your eye out for Cook's model next week.   

Deggans Pundit Alert: Explaining Media's Toughness on Obama and Network TV's Post Strike Blues

Howard Kurtz must be trying to turn me into a star.

That's my admittedly self-centered conclusion after noting how much the Washington Post media critic has quoted me in his latest story, a look at how the media has gotten tougher on Obama. Frankly, this is a trend I talked about way back in February, when a Saturday Night Live sketch poking fun at the media's adulation of Obama seemed to spark a raft of negative stories about the candidate.

Unfortunately, many media outlets' idea of incisive coverage includes stories about whether Obama wears a flag pin and how long he's known that Jeremiah Wright is a loose cannon. Now Howard has weighed in, concluding that Obama has "been brought down to earth by the same media organizations that fueled his meteoric rise."

Another element at work here is something I've also written about before: The news media's love for a tight Democratic primary which has fueled TV ratings, boosted the visibility of myriad reporters and given declining newspapers a reason to argue for their relevance. Big media loves this fight and wants both contenders to stay in the game as long as possible -- which means that whenever one of them pulls ahead, the other will take a few hits.

Another friend in media, reality TV expert Andy Dehnart, did me the honor of calling while he was assembling a story for MSNBC.com on why ratings for network TV shows have dropped since their return after the writers' strike.

Andy presents experts who argue that the viewership dip isn't solely caused by the strike. But as I noted a while ago, the strike allowed some viewers to find new ways to occupy their time -- and the spate of returning shows will last just a few weeks before we're back to reality TV and reruns for summer.

What's more worrisome than viewership drops is the trend of complex scripted shows migrating to cable. Increasingly, the best scripted dramas are found in the wilds of cable, where ratings demands and content restriction are lower. So what will happen to network TV's upscale, educated audience when all you can find on broadcast is Deal or No Deal and Celebrity Apprentice?

Keep your eye on this blog, and you'll read the answers before my quotes wind up in the Washington post or MSNBC.com.   

Bubba the Love Sponge Scores Big Ratings on His Return

When Bubba the Love Sponge Clem first returned to local free commercial "terrestrial" radio in January, he promised two things: that he wouldn’t repeat the same kind of explicit material that got him fired from the dial four years ago, and that he would eclipse rival Todd "MJ" Schnitt in short order.

Following release of ratings from the first full measurement period since his show’s Jan. 8 debut on WHPT-102.5 FM (The Bone), it seems Clem has accomplished both goals, turning employer Cox Radio into a bigger player among area rock radio stations in the process.

According to figures supplied by WHPT and confirmed by the Arbitron ratings service, Clem scored top ratings from Jan. 10 to April 2 among several age groups attractive to advertisers, including: age 12 and older, ages 18 to 34, and ages 25 to 54. In most categories, he tripled or quadrupled ratings from a year ago, bringing a new audience to WHPT's morning show.

"The market just readjusted to where it was before I left," said Clem, who had the top-rated morning show on Clear Channel-owned WXTB-97.9 FM (98Rock) four years ago, when he was fired after incurring a $755,000 indecency fine from the government.

Clem’s success also trickled down to afternoon drive time, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., where WHPT’s former morning man Mike "Cowhead" Calta scored top ratings among adults aged 25 to 54.

Schnitt declined to comment Monday on the ratings, hanging up his cellphone in mid-conversation.

Clem has earned loads of media attention this year — relentlessly criticizing the decision of Mark Lunsford to sue the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office over the investigation into the disappearance, rape and murder of his 9-year-old daughter Jessica. More headlines came when Schnitt sued Clem, alleging that comments critical of him aired on WHPT were false and defamatory.

One industry expert said the numbers may just show listeners’ initial curiosity about Clem.

"The interesting thing will be to see if this continues into the next ratings book and the next," said Ken Tucker, radio editor for the trade magazine Radio and Records. "Right now, this is potentially the biggest audience he’ll ever have."

Clem disagreed. "The Bone has never been a major player in this market, now they are," he said. "I’ve never done this well, this fast."

Here's the ratings figures:

Morning Drive M-F 6a-10a

All numbers here are ratings shares: the percentage of people listening to radio at the time.

Adults ages 12 and over
1. WHPT (The Bone)              9.5
2. WFLZ  (93-3 FLZ)               8.1
3. WDUV  (The Dove)              7.0
4. WBTP   (The Beat)              6.6
5. WFLA-AM  (Newsradio 970) 6.5

Adults ages 18-34
1. WHPT                   18.5
2. WLLD (Wild 98.7)  10.8
3. WFLZ                   10.6
4. WBTP                    7.3
5. WSUN                     5.6

Adults ages 25-54
1. WHPT           14.0
2. WFLZ            10.1
3. WBTP           8.4
4. WQYK          4.6
5. WFLA-AM     4.3

Day Three in NYC: Denis Leary and the Psychology of Race in Election Coverage

Only in New York can you go from an academic discussion of race, media and the presidential election to kickin' it with Rescue Me's Tommy Gavin.

But that's the fun I'm going to be having today, as I cap my time in Gotham by visiting Denis Leary on the set of FX's deliciously profane firefighter drama Rescue Me to talk with about that show and HBO's ambitious take on the Florida-based fight over the 2000 presidential election, Recount.

Last night, I sat on a panel at Columbia University discussing the state of the media's work covering race and the election -- we had lots of criticisms, surprise! -- moderated by Ray Suarez of PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and featuring folks from the Poynter Institute, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal (I KNOW, what was I doing there?)

I was particularly intrigued by the work of the Post's Shankar Vedantam, an academic-friendly reporter who has assembled a number of stories crunching behavioral studies to explain some of the dynamics in the current election.

One reason why he thinks reaction to the Jeremiah Wright scandal varies so starkly between black people and white people is because minorities seems to measure racial progress by comparing current conditions to an ideal future, while white people measure racial progress by comparing the present to our racial past. So when Jeremiah Wright delivers fiery sermons about institutional racism, black people immediately think of how far we have to go while white people get offended, thinking of how far we have come.

He also cited another study in which white people were presented with a scenario -- you're about to be born and you are scheduled to be born white. If your color were somehow switched to black, how much money would you want in compensation? At first, respondents said about $5,000, greatly underestimating the challenges of being black in America. Once they are told the true cost -- that black people are 447 percent more likely to be imprisoned, 521 percent more likely to be murdered and start life generally with five times less the wealth of the average white person -- they usually demand more money.

And regarding gender, he cited a study in which the same description of an executive was handed to two groups of people -- tough but fair, rewards creativity, etc. -- but the only difference is one group gets a description on a CEO named James and the other group gets a description of a CEO named Andrea. You got it - when questioned, the subjects overwhelmingly named Andrea as less likable and James as the boss they would prefer to work for, even though there was no difference in the descriptions except for the names.

His work suggests there are split-second, unconscious reactions to race and gender issues that are affecting how we react to these candidates. Exposing and discussing those tendencies -- and what they mean for real-life candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- is some of the most interesting work around on the campaign trail.

Wonder how Denis is going to react to some of this? 

60 Minutes' Steve Kroft Speaks on Clarence Thomas Interview; Leaves a Few Questions Unanswered

One of the treats of the conference on covering race that I'm attending here at Columbia University, was a chance to hear 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft talk about one of his most controversial interviews in recent memory: his Sept. 30 sit-down with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Critics accused Kroft of handling Thomas with kid gloves to get the kind of access he has never given a TV journalist: hanging with him at his boyhood home in Savanna, Ga., riding in his RV (which he occasionally parks at Wal Marts when he is traveling?!) and questioning him with his wife. Thomas was selling a book -- Kroft admits the publishing house was instrumental in pushing Thomas to do the interview in the first place -- and still left CBS producers unsure if he would fully participate.

"I don't think anybody deserves to be defined totally by his enemies," Kroft said, explaining why he agreed with Thomas' feeling that he had been caricatured by the press. "He is somebody who hasn't gotten a fair shake in the press -- in part, because he let people define him."

I was impressed and a little envious at the resources Kroft said he had -- including seven or eight producers to comb through mountains of research to produce two thick "briefing books" which give him everything major that has been reported on Thomas. 

More than anything, I was intrigued by a moment when Kroft was asked about a typical Thomas inconsistency: He has a moment early in the interview where he insists race is not a huge factor in his life or perception of himself. But he also recounts growing up in a segregated south, feeling as if the white world discounted his law degree from Yale because he was black and being told by his grandfather that at a certain age, he couldn't dare look a white woman in the face for fear of lynching or worse.

But Thomas wound up an opponent of affirmative action who married a white woman. Doesn't that indicate that race had some impact on him, despite his protestations? "I didn't think about that until this session," noted Kroft today.

In an odd way, that response proved the value of what we're talking about here at Columbia. If you don't have journalists on hand who know black culture and black issues -- like the reasons why some black people feel Clarence Thomas is in denial about how race and affirmative action have affected his own life -- then you get stories which miss important cultural issues.

Later, we wondered why Kroft's story claimed at the outset that many criticisms about Thomas -- that he was an affirmative action hire who wants to kill affirmative action, for example -- were false. But the story didn't really seem to demonstrate how. And the many inconsistencies about Thomas' life and views weren't challenged much.

Still it was an informative look at how a big institution like 60 Minutes gets those big interviews -- and what viewers may be missing in the process. 

Ira Glass and This American Life Change the Life of a Tampa Man, Just By Reporting on Him

Talking to Ira Glass feels like starring in your own personal version of This American Life.

His thin, slightly nerdy voice echoes the rhythms of his quirky, wondrous public radio feature show, even over the telephone line from New York City. And our meeting likely wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for Mike Phillips.

Mike is an amazing guy in South Tampa who loves Dr. Who, quotes Seattle rockers Death Cab for Cutie and can only move his left thumb and his face. In today's Floridian, I tell the story of how Mike, who struggles with a neurological disorder which took away his ability to operate many of the muscles in his body, climbed out a depression and began to find a new independence in life after trading emails with Glass, who was interested in profiling him. (at left, Mike poses with his girlfriend, St. Petersburg Times reporter Sara Rosenbaum)

For a while, Mike's story was a contender for This American Life Live, an event tonight in which Glass presents some stories from the TV version of his show, answers questions and shows outtakes in a presentation beamed to theaters across the country, including three in Tampa and Sarasota. But the story proved too long for Glass' live program, though it will be featured on the first episode of This American Life's second season on premium cable channel Showtime.

It's a powerful, penetrating story, featuring picturesque cinematography and movie star Johnny Depp appearing as Mike's voice (because he breathes through a respirator attached to his neck, Mike doesn't talk much, anymore). And Glass made time in a busy pre-Live show schedule to talk a bit about how his story on the 27-year-old became an example of a media version of the fabled Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: the very act of observing something can change it forever.

When did you realize Mike's story could be material for This American Life?

The point at which I thought it was a story was really early. We were emailing about something which isn’t a big part of the story on television – which is how often he has these near death experiences where his breathing gear will stop. Sometimes he’s alone, and sometimes he’s surrounded by people who don’t notice that it’s happened. The way he wrote about what those moments were like was utterly without melodrama. It was just a very easy to relate to reporting of 'Here’s everything that goes through my head when I realize I may die in a minute.' It was kind of amazing. My favorite thing – it happens to him so much, he has a lot to say about it – he thought about the moment when Switch dies in the Matrix movie. And she says 'Not like this.' That’s what he thought. I totally can imagine what it’s like. He just seemed like somebody who was having a number of extraordinary experiences but could relate them in a way anybody could relate to."

Mike seems determined not to be portrayed in the typical way disable people are shown in media.

"We knew he wouldn’t be a caricature of a disabled person – the courageous person who triumphs over adversity. We really tried to structure it so that would not be available to the viewer. When I met Mike in person, the very first thing he did, was that he played me a song a church had written about what an inspiring figure he was. He was very respectful about the people who wrote the song, but it was clear that it wasn’t capturing his experience. It’s not his job to be inspirational.”

How did you get Johnny Depp to serve as Mike's voice on the story?

In a real moment in the story, when I asked Mike 'Who would you like to read your narration?' He said Johnny Depp or Ed Norton. I said well, Ed Norton's based in New York City, you see him on subway with his kid. He seems like a human being who a person could reach. We contacted his agent, said here’s the thing. He was out of the country shooting something and could not make it happen. They expressed regrets and we left it at that...About three weeks before we finished the episode, the president of (Showtime), Bob Greenblatt, asked if we had approached Johnny Depp. He had been in contact with Johnny Depp – for him, Johnny Depp was somebody he could get on the phone. So basically, I emailed his agent at UTA, and he agent passed it onto his sister – his sister is his business manager. What I’m told I his sister forwarded it to Johnny and he said yes. I think I got a reply that day and Johnny was in. I basically pasted in the email some of the things that Mike had written to me. And I said, 'Here’s who this is, and we’re not interested in doing a corny kind of story.' Apparently, he (may) have a recording studio in his home, he just did it on his own.”

Have you ever had a source talk about your show changing their life in the way Mike does?

“I think the way in which we changed his life is the way that anybody’s life might be changed by suddenly having the national press show up. And that seems fine. If somebody was a peace activist and we convinced them to join the marines I would be worried. When we do these stories, I assume I’m seeing some glossy version of someone's life. I’m company. I’m seeing as much as I can see when I’m company. I don’t think there exists some deeper, final truth. In these kinds of situations, I’m looking for something that is true. I’m not Seymour Hersh investigating Abu Ghraib. As long as what we’re showing actually is true, its okay if we don’t get to the bottom core of everyone’s feeling.”