2014 Emmy Nominations and Comments

Man, I feel dumb now. I've actually thought he won for years. Thanks for pointing out my error.

 

I don't think they need to hire people to be bad singers at the American Idol auditions. Thousands of people show up to those things every year on their own. All they have to do is let a few of the bad ones through to make for good TV.
Of the reality show genre, I think the only ones that are anywhere close to being actual reality are probably American Idol and Big Brother. And, truthfully, both of those are closer to game shows than traditional reality TV. Both are competitions that include plenty of live coverage that's hard to fake for any length of time.
Idol has the bad singers in the beginning, but none of those people are making it past the preliminary rounds without everyone involved looking stupid.
With Big Brother, everyone knows it's a game and is doing whatever they can to win it. The drama flows naturally from that. There's no reason to manufacture it, other than whatever twists they come up with to inject some into the game.

 

American Idol does hire "ringers" to be exceptionally bad and flamboyant singers during the auditions. This is a fact.
I've never seen a single minute of Big Brother.

 

And also, when the American Idol hopefuls appear in front of the celebrity judges is not the first time anyone involved with the show has heard them sing. There is a preliminary screening process done by a production assistant prior to the recorded-for-broadcast audition. Clay Aiken, among others, has talked about this in interviews.

So if someone is truly a trainwreck, the PA will pass them through to the "celebrity judge" audition because they know it will be good television.

 

See, this is why I didn't figure they needed to hire "ringers." There are plenty of awful singers with delusions of grandeur out there that it seems unnecessary. All they need to do is find a few bad ones through the screening process and save themselves some money.