Tech Shout!

January 15th 2008, saw the return of American Idol. The show which is now in its seventh season has witnessed enormous highs and lows, amidst quite a few controversies. You may love it, hate it, but one thing’s for sure – you simply can’t ignore it. And well, here’s some great news for all those of you who wouldn’t want to miss the show for the world, but yet end up doing so thanks to that never ending office meeting.

Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Interactive Media, 19 Entertainment, FremantleMedia and Apple have gotten into a unique alliance, to bring keen followers of the show all of the contestant performances from American Idol’s Season Seven exclusively on the iTunes Store. Beginning from this week onwards which will see the top 24 semifinalists pitting against each other on the American Idol show, consumers can buy music performances for 99 cents per song, and from 1st March onwards viewers will be able to purchase the full video of Top 12 finalist performances for $1.99. And the fun doesn’t end there, if you have one particular contestant whom you love the most, then from today, you can actually go ahead and pre-order performances of your favorite contestant/s from the iTunes Store, which will be automatically downloaded the day after the show hits TV screens.

American Idol is created and executive-produced by Simon Fuller, founder and CEO of 19 Entertainment. He said, “We have some truly outstanding talent this year, and by working with Apple and iTunes, we’re giving viewers another great way to enjoy America’s brightest new stars from ‘Idol,’” said. “I’m sure there will be many memorable performances that viewers will want to relive from this 2008 season.”

“We’ve created a special section on the iTunes Store for ‘Idol’ fans with an incredible array of music and video performances from television’s most popular show,” stated Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We think ‘American Idol’ viewers are going to love the ability to purchase and download ‘Idol’ performances from iTunes.”

Exclusive direct links from the free streaming performance videos on americanidol.com, which is the official website of the show and home to MyIdol, the Internet’s largest American Idol fan site will be offered by iTunes.

The American Idol music and video content is available in the US and Canada only. While music performances are priced at 99 cents (US), the video performances come at $1.99 (US) per episode.

So all you ardent American Idol aficionados, get ready to simply click through to iTunes and buy your favorite performances to own and sit back and enjoy them all on your Mac/PC, iPod nano with video, iPod classic, fifth generation iPod, iPod touch, iPhone or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV.