E3 Group

Britain’s Got Talent has come to an end with Diversity being crowned this year’s champions. With the show finishing, you would expect the media storm surrounding the competition to die down but so far, it has simply gathered momentum, becoming a full blown hurricane. Susan Boyle is now in rehab for the stress of becoming an overnight success and every single act who participated in the final, and even some of the semi finalists, are now the nations hottest entertainment property. What has astounded me is how much the show has impacted on the media, the public and the entertainment business. Last week, E3 Artists reported record visits to the website from people hoping to hire Gareth Oliver and this morning, we even received a Dominoes Pizza leaflet encouraging customers to enter a Britain’s Got Talent competition to design a new pizza. BGT has shaken off its image as the poor relation of the X Factor and other reality TV shows to become the nation’s most watched and most debated programme.

At E3 Artists, the BGT fallout has been unprecedented. Aside from the Gareth Oliver enquiries, every day our team is taking countless requests to book, Shaun Smith, Flawless, Stavros Flatly and really, any BGT act that they can get their hands on. The Simon Cowell/ Piers Morgan press juggernaut is keeping every act firmly in the public eye and encouraging businesses of all shapes and sizes to associate their brand with the Britain’s Got Talent phenomenon. Following the unconfirmed report that Susan Boyle has been asked to perform at the White House, even international governments want to get in on the action and associate their office with the outpouring of good feeling to all the BGT acts.

Critics are levelling accusations of exploitation against the show, accusing them of publicising to death the likes of Susan Boyle while giving no emotional support to the acts thrust at lightening speed into the public eye. I am quite sceptical of exactly how exploitative the show really is. Isn’t the goal of all acts taking part to perform in front of the Queen at the Royal Variety performance? If that isn’t one of the most high profile moments of any entertainer’s career, I don’t know what is. I understand that people may not be prepared for a meteoric rise to fame like the one this series has awarded Susan Boyle, but why would anyone audition for this kind of competition without being in some way mentally prepared for and in fact, actively seeking fame? At any rate, it is clear that the runaway train that is Britain’s Got Talent is far from the home straight and acts like Susan Boyle and winners Diversity will have to be prepared for the international renown that is now obviously unavoidable. In future series’, The BGT team will have to give serious thought to the support available to these acts to help them deal with the stardom that is now so clearly unavoidable.

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• Susan Boyle Loses on British Talent TV Show (nytimes.com)
• Kylie: ‘Nobody To Blame For Boyle Breakdown’ (news.sky.com)
• Fewer than 20 complaints over Boyle (guardian.co.uk)
• Diversity Wins Britain’s Got Talent (netnewsdaily.com)
• Diversity ponder their future after triumph (guardian.co.uk)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Britain's Got Talent, Celebrity News, E3 Artists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.