Wait. I thought part of the problem was singing competition overkill. Guess I was wrong.
After several seasons of declining ratings, Fox bailed on American Idol in 2016, but the show didn't stay gone for long. ABC is bringing a rebooted Idol back March 11 and hopes to compete with NBC's The Voice.
I guess Fox felt left out, so it's trying a new twist on the old genre at 7 p.m. Jan. 4 called The Four: Battle for Stardom. It'll be a two-hour premiere.
Wait. Did I see you stifle a yawn? Maybe this one will be different. Maybe.
Music/entertainment mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs is one of the four panelist/judges (and also a producer) and promises that the show "will disrupt the world of competition television" and "revolutionize the format."
Disruption and revolution. That's what TV needs.
The others on the panel will be "record-producing hit-maker" DJ Khaled, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Meghan Trainor and president of Republic Records Charlie Walk.
Host for the show will be the eight-time Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Fergie (born Stacy Ann Ferguson), who said The Four "will set the standard for the next generation of singing competition series on TV."
Nothing like a little hyperbole to spark interest.
"We plan on being the best talent show out there, taking it to that next level and making history again," Combs boasts in a Fox news release. "This series is about pure competition [and] fighting for your survival. We're giving fans a genuine look at what it takes to make it to the top and stay there -- surrounding these up-and-coming artists with the best, turning them into the next generation of stars."
Well, we've heard all that bragging before. Only a handful of Idol winners or competitors have gone on to real stardom, and none from The Voice. How will this series be different?
The Four works in sort of reverse from the usual format. In this one, the producers have already conducted auditions and picked the four finalists spanning all music genres. That removes the drawn out and messy audition, competition and winnowing process.
In something akin to The Voice's knockout rounds, the final four will try to defend their spots against an onslaught of new singers out to bump them off.
Each week, the panel of judges will determine if any of the defenders were outperformed. If so, it's out with the old and in with the new. At the end of the six-episode season, the final four face off against one another and the last one standing gets to have the four panelists "guide the winner's career to help make him or her a breakout star."
There may be only six episodes, but Fox has a strategy. The Idol reboot will not yet be on the air and The Voice will be on hiatus. Fox hopes The Four will get a fair tryout without competition around. We'll see if that works.
• Diddy documentary. Having the 48-year-old Combs associated with The Four should be a major draw for the series. He's a bona-fide superstar who has a total net worth of $820 million, according to Forbes.
But it wasn't always so for Combs. The artist "had to overcome adversity and tragedy to make it to the top."
That's according to Apple Music's Can't Stop Won't Stop: A Bad Boy Story airing from 7-9 p.m. today on Fox. Bad Boy Entertainment is the name of the record label Combs founded in 1993. Today it is part of Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment.
The special takes a behind-the-scenes look at the rise of Bad Boy from its beginnings in Harlem and Brooklyn. It explores the 1997 drive-by murder of Combs' friend, rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (the case is still unsolved), and shows how Bad Boy "reshaped music, fashion marketing and culture."
The film culminates with two 2016 performances at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with artists Lil' Kim, Mase, Faith Evans, Mario Winans, 112, Total, Carl Thomas and The Lox. The special also features performances by Jay Z, Usher, French Montana, Nas and Combs.
Trivia: What's with his nicknames? Combs told Jet magazine he grew up in a neighborhood where everyone had nicknames and Puffy was his because when he got mad, he used to huff and puff.
That became Puff Daddy as early as 1990. In 1998, he returned to his given name of Sean John. In 1999, he reverted to Puffy, then began using P. Diddy professionally in 2001, and finally simplified to Diddy in 2005.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Weekend on 12/28/2017