From ‘American Bandstand’ to ‘American Idol’: How TV Boosted the Music Biz

Joe Lynch
·3 min read
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Movies stayed silent for their first few decades, but TV rocked out not long after the first coast-to-coast U.S. broadcast. Pioneers like Dick Clark and Don Cornelius introduced America to top musical talent, and shows like American Idol televise the search for it. As the show returns for its 22nd season, let’s tune in to some reruns of the revolutions that were televised.

Taking the ’Stand

“New Faces, Anyone?” asked an Aug. 12, 1957, Billboard headline. “The one performer who may emerge in a regular berth on the live TV side is [American Bandstand host] Dick Clark. He’s 6’2″, rugged, slow smile, cleft chin and low-pitched voice.” Who could say no? [Editor’s note: Clark was 5’9″. Billboard regrets telling a tall tale.] The Dec. 16, 1957, Billboard reported that the “teen crowd makes a habit of tuning in [to] the Dick Clark American Bandstand show,” which it called “one of the more successful, using the dance party format and Clark top billing as a teenage draw.” The following year, a Nov. 10, 1958, story noted that the show “continues to clobber the competition.”

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Runaway ‘Train’

“There will be more TV shows next season for the exposure of record product and record talent than ever before,” reported the July 31, 1965, Billboard, with TV networks “capitalizing on the ratings-boosting power of popular record talent.” By the ’70s, Midnight Special, Soul Train and American Bandstand became essential artist promotion tools, and the June 24, 1978, Billboard credited them for promoting the “mass audience acceptance” of disco. In a Sept. 28, 1974 article, Curtis Mayfield pointed to Soul Train host Cornelius as “a most important factor in exposing Black talent,” while Clarence Avant said the program showed Black youth that Black artists “could do their own thing — and do it as well musically and more soulfully than the cat on the next station.”

Video Remade the Radio Star

By the ’80s, music videos had changed artist promotion, but before the end of the decade, MTV planted a flag on more traditional turf. In the Dec. 16, 1989, Billboard, an MTV programming executive introduced Unplugged as “the antithesis of everything else on MTV” since acoustic performances “seemed like the perfect thing to do” amid “the reemergence of folk music.” The 1998 premiere of Total Request Live returned the focus to videos, but artist appearances were still essential. “It was as if the seediness had left Times Square,” an MTV executive said in the July 28, 2001, issue, “and the screaming fans moved in.”

‘Idol’ Worship

“It’s the good, the bad and the ugly … to the extreme,” singer-dancer and talent judge Paula Abdul told Billboard for a June 21, 2002, article about American Idol: The Search for a Superstar, which quickly reinvented music on TV for the 21st century. Enough Americans joined the hunt that the show “was 2006’s top-rated TV series by a wide margin,” the Jan. 20, 2007, issue reported. “The show averaged more than 30 million viewers — ratings that trail only the likes of special one-off events like the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards.” The program, which introduced Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, among others, had perfect pitch.

This story originally appeared in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.

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