One too many already

Reality programmes - yes, I'm commenting on them again - are ubiquitous these days, more so those with the entertainment flavour, especially the so-called talent search reality programmes that produce instant noodle singers. I have seen street entertainers with much greater talent than these instant noodles, errr..., singers.

I have a feeling that television stations are so into producing reality programmes not because they want to really unearth hidden talents. Instead they're into it for the lucrative returns in the form of advertising revenues derived from high viewership and the ever-so gullible text-voting public whose fingers work faster than the brain. These television stations are, after all, commercial entities. I have to admit that there are some good singers produced by these reality programmes. But the painful truth is these singers are few and far in between.

After five seasons of "Akademi Fantasia," perhaps aside from Mawi and probably a few others, I don't see the other "graduates" doing well in terms of their singing career. Most of them became one-album, or worst still, one-single wonder, and then disappeared into obscurity.

"Malaysian Idol" gave us Jaclyn Victor who I think has a great voice, but then again she is not exactly an amateur when she joined the show. The second season of this show is but a pale shadow compared to the first.

Don't get me started on "GangStarz." This is perhaps one of the worst reality programmes I have ever seen. Okay, perhaps not as bad as the now-defunct "Who Will Win" and "Audition," but still the singing on this show is horrendous. I wonder what Paul Moss would have said if he was the judge. It feels like watching a karaoke singing competition with the participants having the syok sendiri syndrome.

All this is becoming unreal actually. I personally think we have too many such programmes on air as it is. Why have more? We have one too many talent shows already.

On a different but related note, I hope the television stations producing these programmes would set a minimum age for participants. Don't allow those still in school to participate. Education comes first. Never mind the fact a singer can make more dough, but how long can a singer really sustain his or her popularity? It is good while it lasts, but when it ends, without education to fall back on, that'd be really be the end. I have seen a former teen heart-throb who was a lead singer in one of those 1990s boybands selling burgers at a pasar malam. Nothing wrong with that, but how I wish he had stayed focus in his studies. [I know he didn't because he was a student at the school my wife is teaching].

I think teenagers should know that a proper education would help in the long run. Those who aspire to become entertainers should take a cue from people like Dr. Fazley Yaakob and Allahyarham Sudirman Haji Arshad, just to name a few that come to mind. An educated entertainer makes a far better role model to our children, don't you think?