Ang pag-atras ng Philippine Idol sa katapat na programa sa dos na Pinoy Dream Academy ay hudyat lamang na nagwagi na nga ang huli sa head-on collision ng dalawang imported reality talent search programs. Our survey even says it loud and clear, 69% prefers Pinoy Dream Academy and only 31% prefers Philippine Idol.

It’s very ironic because in the US it’s a totally different story. American Idol is the phenomenal hit and Dream Academy is a major flop, in fact, the show was even cancelled.

The factors contributing to the lack-luster performance of Philippine Idol are:

a) ABC 5 can only reach parts of the Philippines, mostly in Luzon only and other cable channels while ABS CBN’s signal is loud and clear in the whole Philippines and in other countries with the TFC channel.

b) Pang-“masa” ang Pinoy Dream Academy while pang-“elitista” ang Philippine Idol (at least that’s what people are saying).

c) In Pinoy Dream Academy, most of the people is ok with the result because the organizers have control on who they think the televiewers want to remain in the competition (They even set a new rule in order to achieve this goal). In Philippine Idol, the organizers do not have control on the results that’s why the televiewers are getting furious every week that the best contestants are eliminated.

But now, i think ABC learned their lesson. They changed the voting scheme to 2 hours from the original 24 hours span. They changed their time-slot, at least loyal viewers of PDA can now watch Philippine Idol on a Sunday night.

Let’s just hope that it’s not yet too late for them to bring out the “phenomenal” out of this idol show. Tayo lang ata ang bansa na hindi nag-hit ang brand idol, para bang the only country in the world where the no. 1 fastfood chain is NOT McDonalds.