Is Bon Jovi the True American Idol?

Writer's strike or no writer's strike, millions of American television viewers will flip on the tube tonight, locate their local FOX station and tune into the country's number one reality-sitcom-drama… American Idol

Some find the audition outtakes simply hilarious... better than the Saget years on AFV, some find the awkwardness of juvenile karaoke stars learning to follow the cameras and still remember the lyrics while performing on live television purely entertaining and others actually watch the show for the hope of catching the glimpse of some undiscovered 'talent'.

Even though tens of millions of viewers cast their votes each week and the program dominates the television ratings, American Idol for the most part is questionable, even if they do occasionally showcase the odd nugget of worthwhile American talent...see Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson or Bon Jovi support act Chris Daughtry.

Over the past few seasons a lot of attention has been focused on bringing in celebrity mentors to work with the finalists and perhaps add some value to the program. These appearances offered valuable experience for the shows characters (I mean contestants), it provided entertaining filler to drag on the results episodes and the mentors were provided the ultimate venue to showcase a new single or album release.

Word this year is that the shows producers are placing less emphasis on the high profile entertainers that would be joining the show on a weekly basis. I’m sure the interest is still there from an industry perspective as record labels watch sales slip away day after day, week after week and could use that audience to promote their latest releases to.

Could this decision to exclude the big name ‘idols’ be due to the fact that American Idol may have outdone themselves last season? Did they already crown the ultimate Idol when Bon Jovi performed on the show? The response to the Bon Jovi appearance was so overwhelming that the producers of Canadian Idol felt it necessary to drag the Jovi-train up to Canada so that they could boost the profile of their own season finale.

If Bon Jovi was eligible to receive phone-in votes on American Idol, how many of the 60-some million votes would they have gotten? A majority I bet… sorry to all the Taylor Hicks fans out there. Did anybody even buy his record?

I’m not even going to try and figure that one out. My point here is not to bash AI, the point is the audiences, the judges and Idol competitions in two nations adore Bon Jovi. It’s time to track down those millions of Idol voters and get them to show their love for Bon Jovi and get them to include their influential power in wishing a worldly happy birthday to Jon Bon Jovi.