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Sorry George, but the reviews are in and the One just plain sucks. The ABC produced, CBC simulcasted Idol/Next Top Model/Big Brother mashup sucks so much that the National (which was actually bumped forward an hour) managed to get almost three times the number of viewers. The One just managed to pull 236,000 viewers compared to the National which pulled in a respectable 550,000+ viewers. Antonia Zerbisias goes on at length at the show's shortcomings.
Even the CBC's official blog tries really really hard to find nice things to say and surprise surprise Canadian Idol stomps all over the One, with CTV pointing out that their reality show outperformed the CBC by 424%.
We're also wondering whether ABC and CBC have been planting people to counteract the brutally negative comments on the One's bulletin board. Blatantly positive messages like this one asking viewers to check out the Hour. There is one possible saving grace, one viewer fell in love with a contestant's hairstyle (she turned out be from the European version of the One), so perhaps ABC should remake the One into "America's Next Top Hairstyle" or something similarly vapid. It might actually do something to save the CBC's fall season, which the Canadian version of the One was supposed to anchor. Surprisingly, the show also proves something that we didn't think we'd ever admit, good reality tv is actually very hard to do. Mark Burnett will you forgive us for all those mean things we've said?
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I suspect if Rockstar started earlier than C-Idol they might do better (and C-Idol worse). My wife watches C-I until Rockstar starts and then dumps it completely.
Sadly only one canadian is left standing but I doubt he'll be leaving any time soon :)
I used to work for a company in the States that was hired to post on message boards for Sony produced shows and movies and talk them up. I was assigned to 2 soap operas, 15 shows and several movies a year, my job was to create a minimum of 25 different "personas" and post all over the message boards (both our own and fan sites) and "discuss" how great the shows were -- even when they sucked. So to answer your question, Yes. The CBC probably hired people to pump up the forums.
Fern, you've confirmed my long-standing inklings.
The best were the posts a friend of mine found years ago on the official OC message boards, when the show first started. All the apparent tweeners had "noticed" that the shirt Summer was wearing was down at their local American Eagle and wanted to let the world know they would be running down to buy one tout suite!
It all seemed a little to well crafted and timed to be real.