The idol rich; Michelle and Mark battled it out but the real winners

Claudia Rosencrantz, the controller of entertainment at ITV, was intrigued. In front of her were Simon Fuller - who made massive stars of the Spice Girls - and Simon Cowell - the man behind Westlife, Robson and Jerome ... and Sinitta. The programme they were trying to persuade her to commission resembled nothing so much as an update of the hoary old Opportunity Knocks.

Today, Rosencrantz must be thanking her lucky stars that the two Simons won her over. The programme they created is probably the most successful syndicate in TV history, attracts more viewers in Britain than virtually anything other than Coronation Street and EastEnders, and will be one of the biggest moneyspinners in the schedules at both Christmas and New Year.

Attempts to find out from Thames Television exactly how much money Pop Idol brings flooding in are met with a curt "we're a business, not a charity". They're not kidding.

Twenty-two nations have picked up the show's concept from Fremantle Media and unleashed it in homes across the world. You can even get Pop Idol in Kazakhstan, where it's called Superstarkz (there's a Pan-Arabic version, too).

On any evening on almost any day of the week, television sets on nearly every inhabitable continent broadcast a version of ITV's talent competition that nets more than 10 million UK viewers.

That figure will probably be topped on Christmas Day, when a pre- recorded World Idol - a sort of Miss Universe for Pop Idol first series winners in 11 nations - is screened, and when a winner is announced on New Year's Day.

"It's like watching your baby learn to walk," said Rosencrantz. "I'm very surprised it's had a global impact. It proves there are aspects of the show that people, no matter where they live, can connect to - that all over the world, we are very much the same."

Yet when Cowell and Fuller initially brought Rosencrantz their concept for Pop Idol, the network didn't realise the magnitude of what it was taking on. Rosencrantz made a leap and commissioned 21 episodes to prove she believed in the show. She had already brought Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to Britain and could see the sapling of another major hit take root.

"We sat in my office and talked about this idea of taking on solo artists and empowering the public to decide who should be a pop star," she said. "My dream was to find the next David Cassidy."

That dream has yet to come true, but the top two in the first series last year - Will Young and Gareth Gates - are no slouches in the teenybopper stakes. If nothing else, they proved how very much the public could latch on to, and love, the Cinderella-esque contestants. On its most human level, the show appealed to a dream almost every human being entertains at one point or another: to win a shot at celebrity.

"For young people, they still have that dream," said Rosencrantz. "Maybe older people have forgotten it and the show reminds them. In a weird way, people of all ages have been able to engage with Pop Idol. For some, the show unites families.

"That's an incredible function within a home and society, and it's happening all over the world."

Its other function is to make lots of money for Fuller and Cowell. Its success at doing so was boosted by the fact that America took the show - and the infamously brusque, downright rude Cowell - to its bosom. On the World Idol shows, Cowell will judge for America, while pop producer Pete Waterman handles the duty for Britain.

American audiences had seen nothing like Pop Idol, or Cowell, before the show made its debut last year. Aside from Pop Idol, two major British television shows have captivated American audiences - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and The Weakest Link, both with acerbic, occasionally witty hosts.

"When NBC came to us with its thoughts on a presenter for The Weakest Link, we set up a pilot with another presenter," said Mike Phillips, director of international television for BBC Worldwide.

"At the last moment we said, 'We don't think anybody is going to do this as well as Anne Robinson.

"The same thing happened with Simon on Pop Idol. They felt, on the whole, US TV is relatively bland and that it would have been impossible for them to find someone with his kind of attack. Britain is seen as the market that all American broadcast executives have to keep their eye on."

We may not yet know who will be crowned World Idol - Cowell has already voiced his vote for America's Kelly Clarkson, whose single is featured on hit British film Love Actually - but certain winners will be Fuller and Cowell.

From Poland to the US, nations that can agree on little else agree that they love Pop Idol. In Holland, the show enjoys the highest rating of any programme since the start of commercial television. Fans rioted in the streets when a candidate was voted off the Pan- Arabic Superstar.

"The Australian final was in the Sydney Opera House," said Alan Boyd, president of worldwide entertainment at Fremantle. "That's when the public really realised the magnitude of the show. It really is an emotional rollercoaster around the world. In every nation, the same effect occurs. There's emotion. There's passion. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry. It touches your heart."

So it's hardly surprising Fremantle shows obsessive zeal about keeping control of the brand. London producers continually trot the globe to inspect Pop Idol sets, with the exception of Iceland and Kazakhstan, which maintain their own licensing due to their isolated locations. There are regular seminars sponsored by the London office, where producers from around the world learn all the "tricks and traps" of making the show to ensure that Pop Idol's brand identity remains the same, no matter where it is viewed.

"The graphics look the same everywhere," said Boyd, who is working on bringing the show to Asia, the only inhabitable continent that does not have Pop Idol. "The sets are identical in Germany and Holland. There's the same lighting, the same monitoring structures. The genre is always the same."

And the secret vote stays secret everywhere. In Britain, the only person who gets to know which contestants stay, and who goes home head bowed, is executive producer Richard Holloway, who has sole access to the locked room where a computer logs votes. Holloway finds out 10 minutes before presenters Ant and Dec tell the public.

"The director and cameraman gets told a second before it's announced," said Boyd, who admits that even he is left in the dark about the winner until the end. "Ant and Dec get the name on a card right at the commercial break. They know only one or two minutes before they say it."

Can the success last? Some reports suggest that the second British series, which ended last night, will record fewer votes than the lucrative first series in which Will Young beat Gareth Gates in a tense final.

Louise Walsh, who manages Westlife and Girls Aloud, has slammed the show as "predictable". She said: "This year's Pop Idol has been a bad karaoke contest and it hasn't done the numbers."

Even Waterman has his reservations. With increasing viciousness, each interview he has given in recent weeks casts more doubt on the ability of the contestants. In his most recent, he said: "These contestants have blunted the reputation of the show. Pop Idol has become 'freaks and geeks' and I think the Americans have sent us down the Jerry Springer route.We're a pretty small island and it's been trawled five times by different programmes looking for talent. Maybe we have to wait for the pond to fill up a bit."

There could be more problems for Scot Michelle McManus, who does not quite fit the Pop Idol image. When the judges called her "sexy" during the final's disco show, her face showed her shock. But it's her personality, and her ability to persevere, that enamoured McManus to the public and kept viewers tuning in, Rosencrantz says. "People talk a lot about her weight, but actually it's her personality that people have latched on to."

For the public, McManus remained the girl they could not resist falling in love with, added Boyd, who is from Edinburgh. He admits it is a "tough call" whether McManus can convince the public that she encapsulates the image of a pop star.

But Cowell said yesterday that he backed Michelle because "the public wants something unique".

"In the end, it comes down to a popularity contest, and Michelle is a lovely person. My heart goes out to her because she hasn't a chip on her shoulder. She never says 'I'm at a disadvantage because I'm big'."

"There's always been room in television for the truly quirky," explained Phillips. "Pop Idol on the whole was about people who were drop-dead gorgeous. For all shows like that, if you're going to continue, you can't exactly do the same thing over and over again. You need to find something different."

Copyright 2003 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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