When TV Guide Channel host Kimberly Caldwell chatted last month with journalists at the TV networks’ summer press tour in Pasadena, Calif., the former “American Idol” contestant’s past experience touring with American Idols Live occupied one Q&A session.
The 24-year-old said she enjoyed life on the road with the other “Idol” finalists back in 2003, and she dished a bit about tour accommodations.
Yes, the group spent more time on buses than planes hopping from concert to concert. No, they didn’t have to double up on hotel rooms.
Then somebody asked what an “Idol” contestant gets paid for touring.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” Caldwell said.
And the interview ended.
Caldwell might have been asserting old-fashioned manners: It’s not polite to talk about money, though everybody does.
But her reticence might have had another origin: First-year “Idol” contestants signed contracts that levied $5 million fines for revealing “any and all information … concerning or relating to the series.” How punitive later contracts are, and how long those contracts remain in force, is information kept between the contestants and 19 Entertainment, the British company that created “Idol.”
But since 2002, when an entertainment lawyer posted online a copy of the company’s first-season “Idol” contract, the question of compensation for these newcomers has lingered. Some observers of the “Idol” phenomenon also wonder as a matter of fairness whether the contestants are exploited, and what they signed away for a shot at fame.
” ‘American Idol’ is one of those things where you have to realize that you’re being used for entertainment,” first-season runner-up Justin Guarini told Entertainment Weekly in 2004, “and you better use it back.”
With Idols Live on the road for a fifth year and coming to the Chicago area this weekend, it’s easy to imagine the latest crop living large off a franchise awash in money. The available evidence does suggest that “Idol” finalists can earn far more than they did in their former jobs. Four of this year’s finalists, including winner Taylor Hicks, already have signed record deals.
Hicks, from Alabama, was a working musician and sometime wedding singer who’d never had a recording contract before “Idol.” He now appears in a TV spot for Ford and already might be collecting royalty checks for his hit single, “Do I Make You Proud.”
Along with income from music, commercials and personal appearances, work in film, TV and theater is a possibility. Third-season winner Fantasia Barrino plays herself in a Lifetime movie this weekend. Third-season finalist Jennifer Hudson will co-star with Beyonce in the movie adaptation of the play “Dreamgirls.” Caldwell will make her big-screen debut next year in a slasher sequel, “Wrong Turn 2.”
Given the opportunities, it doesn’t sound difficult to agree to almost any conditions the show’s producers see fit to set. But the terms of the leaked contract–the one signed by contestants including the original “Idol,” Kelly Clarkson–were criticized at the time as unusually severe.
Kenneth Freundlich, an L.A. entertainment attorney, told salon.com in 2002 that the “Idol” contract represented “the worst rendition of the industry,” although he later changed his tune, given the show’s success at creating stars and generating record sales in the face of the music industry’s slump.
Simon Fuller, the British talent manager who created “Idol” and runs 19 Entertainment, has made clear that he’s comfortable with the balance of power between himself and contestants. Where most talent managers keep 15 percent to 20 percent of their clients’ earnings, Fuller keeps between 25 percent and 50 percent. He has called that a fair stake given his ability to turn former unknowns into bankable stars.
“My deals are the best in the world,” he told The Associated Press in 2003.
Barrino, at the TV press tour to talk about her movie, rejected any description of the “Idol” contract as exploitive.
“It’s not like that at all,” she said. “Even after you win, you choose to stay or you choose to go. And, you know, I choose to stay because they take good care of me. … They’ll say, ‘If you want to do it, then it’s here for you. If not, we can take it, and we will move on.’ “
Finalists are obligated to tour “unless there’s an illness,” said Nigel Lythgoe, who works for 19 Entertainment’s TV division and was at the press tour to promote another reality contest, “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Lythgoe said the “Idol” finalists’ commitment to 19 Entertainment ends after the tour, unless they have signed a record deal with the company’s in-house label.
American Idols Live
When: Saturday
Where: Allstate Arena, 6920 N. Mannheim Rd., Rosemont
With: Taylor Hicks, Katharine McPhee, Ace Young, Bucky Covington, Chris Daughtry, Elliott Yamin, Kellie Pickler, Lisa Tucker, Mandisa and Paris Bennett
