Idolator

You may remember our previous coverage of the CBS show Jingles, in which ordinary Americans will have the chance to write little ditties about some of America's most beloved consumer products and win $100 grand, thus depriving many indie musicians of a potential revenue source and giving the Tiffany Network a little budgetary wiggle room for some wild Early Show wrap parties. Last night the casting director of the show dropped me a line with news of auditions, and reading it over made me think, "Hey, I could do that." But then I realized that being on TV and blogging would probably kill me, so my next thought was, "Hey, our readers should totally do that!" No, really. All of you reading this are smart, and music-savvy, and you can all put a sentence together. So c'mon guys! Let's get a bunch of teams together and show the people how music is made! (I'm 100% serious about this.) More »

CBS has decided to pick up the Mark Burnett game show Jingles, during which contestants will be required to write songs showcasing the various sponsors of the program in a positive light, then have those tunes judged by an "expert panel" and Americans. Winning songs will get used in the featured products' commercials, a fact that should make any indie musician hoping to pay his rent by selling his track to a soap company quiver in his boots. The designed-for-evading-TiVoers show will likely appear on the network's schedule come summertime, and casting is apparently going on right now! Here's a suggestion for CBS: How about cueing up a "marginal indie celebrity" version of the show to bring down your network's average viewing age—perhaps Feist vs. Wilco vs. Stephin Merritt? A preview of that potential throwdown is after the jump. More »

Indie musicians whose livelihoods are semi-dependent on repurposing their songs as ads may want to think about alternate revenue streams—and it's all because of a threatened TV writers' strike. The possible walkout is resulting in a lot of game shows being ordered by networks; one of the shows on CBS' plate for summer '08 is Jingles, where—you guessed it—contestants jockey with one another to see who can write the best songs honoring actual products that will, no doubt, be thrilled to be included on the show: More »