The Nielsen Company today released some interesting data about the American Idol phenomenon. I’m pleased to share these key highlights, some of which include references to David Archuleta.

TV ratings

Viewership this season is being propelled by the 35-49 age demographic which comprises 29 percent of the audience. The 50-64 demographic comprises 23 percent of the audience. The 18-49 demographic comprises 50 percent of Idol viewers, the total audience being an average of 27 million this year for each episode. Compare that to 12 million in the first season and 30 million in the fifth season. All in all, Idol, by and far, is today’s most successful show at reaching network television’s most important age demographic.

The power of texting

The average American Idol participant voted via text message 38 times in April 2008, peaking with the April 29 episode. Women submitted 44 percent more text votes than men. Keep in mind that voting by text is only available to AT&T subscribers. Nielsen Mobile tracks text message voting and contest behavior through its panel of 43,000 U.S. wireless lines.

Season 7 contestants and online buzz

Nielsen Online monitors 70 million blogs for buzz volume reported as a percentage. David Cook (14.3 percent), David Archuleta (12.5 percent) and Jason Castro (10.5 percent) have dominated the show’s consumer discussion online. Brooke White continues to be included after being voted off two weeks ago with 7.5 percent buzz volume, while Syesha Mercado, who was eliminated this week, trails with 5.4 percent.

On Hey! Nielsen’s online research panels, Archuleta and Cook have been this season’s most popular contestants, followed by White, Castro, and — surprise — Danny Noriega.

Interesting postscript: Castro’s performances in two instances generated significant spikes in digital download and album sales for original artists. They included Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” which went to the top spot on Hot Digital Songs with 178,000 copies. Later, his take on Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of “What A Wonderful World” sent the original track to eleventh on the same chart.

Product placements

Folks, this is part of the reason why the American Idol property is so valuable to Fox. With partial numbers in for the current season, there were nearly 3,300 product placements by the end of March (the first three months), compared to more than 4,300 for all of last season. No surprise which are the most frequently placed brands: Coca-Cola, AT&T, and Ford Autos and Trucks.

Foie gras

Back in March, I criticized campaigns by so-called animal welfare activists to ban foie gras, the great goose and duck liver delicacy found in many fine restaurants and shops. Yesterday, the Chicago City Council, bolstered by Mayor Richard M. Daley’s comments that this was the silliest ordinance, repealed the ban on foie gras for that city’s restaurants. The vote: 37-6. In March, the Maryland state legislature rejected a ban on foie gras. Money quote from the New York Times’ dining journal.

“Monica Davey, the Times’s Chicago bureau chief, says the ban has been a source of embarrassment for the city and the repeal comes as residents have accused officials of trying to micromanage people’s lives, with talk of prohibiting smoking even outside along the lakefront and eliminating transfats from restaurants.

“No other American city has prohibited foie gras’ sale, but California has passed a law banning it as of 2012.”

Hopefully, common sense will float back to California.

Archuleta’s social media networking support

Needless to say, we now have an all-David final for the American Idol competition. Readers who’ve been following my new Twitter feed saw yesterday morning’s report indicating predictions from two sources about Syesha Mercado’s elimination. Updating my earlier post about the extent of social media networking support for the Murray, Utah singer, the following comes from BuzzLogic’s blog:

Following Tuesday’s performances, here’s where we stand on influential blogs and number of posts around each contestant:

David Cook: 618 sites / 8352 posts
David Archuleta: 428 / 8553
Syesha Mercado: 232 / 10188

Key analysis point:

“The frontrunner, according to the influential buzz, is David Archuleta. Yes, the influencers love to poke fun at his penchant for “eye squinting” - and despite the fact that the number of sites and posts buzzing about David Archuleta doesn’t immediately signal an Idol winner, the positive influencer sentiment here is much stronger than that around David Cook. Buzz around David Cook’s last two performances was not favorable - the perception being David Cook will make the finale by the skin of his teeth.”

John-Paul Jespersen

This young, gifted photographer — who’s been featured before on this blog (here, here, and here) — regularly provides banner photos for The Selective Echo’s home page. The new one was taken just days ago off the pipeline trail north of the Avenues District of Salt Lake City.

In March, Jespersen also published Man Was Here, a book of 31 photographs taken since 2006. This 40-page book contains images from an ongoing project. This is not a final body of work. The images contained here may again be published when the work is finished. This book is limited to an edition of 20 copies, to be numbered and signed by the artist. It is available here. Other work is featured here.

Twenty food vendors and a demonstration kitchen representing some of the more adventuresome cuisine of the world will be among the highlights of the Living Traditions Festival which runs for three days beginning Friday. The festival, which also features craftspeople, musicians, and dancers, is a major public event, being presented for the 23rd consecutive year by the Salt Lake City Arts Council.

There will be basque steak sandwiches; puaka tuna (Tongan roast pork with spices); Bolivian salchipapas (fried hot dog and potato slices); Tibetan momos (dumplings); Filipino turon (banana and jack fruit with brown sugar wrapped like an eggroll); Scottish forfar bridie (a beef-filled pastry flavored with potato and onions); Vietnamese and Thai dishes; Bosnian pot (a beef soup), and Sudanese kabobs. Revenue is re-invested into the respective cultural organizations to fund additional programming.

One of the most popular festival features will be the demonstration kitchen at the southeast corner of the festival grounds, located at the Salt Lake City and County Building in downtown. HomeCooks and Kimball Distributing also will sponsor the demonstration kitchen. Hosted by Jim Light, a professional chef and culinary instructor, the demonstrations will highlight the following:

Saturday, May 17:

African Sukuma Wiki with Sadza — Sabina Zunguze of Zimbabwe will use leftover meat with greens, vegetables, peanut butter and spices.

Bulgarian Kebapcheta — Nikolaj Ivanov of Sofia will prepare the country’s signature sausage dish.

Bun Bo Xao Xa — Linh Ho will create the dish more commonly known as Vietnamese beef with lemon grass and rice noodles.

Sunday, May 18:

Turkish Gozleme — Ayse Durmus of Turkey will demontsrate a traditional hand-rolled savory pastry.

Austrian Wiener Schnitzel — David Foulger will create an iconic dish — a breaded tenderized slice of meat served with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Bangladesh Shrimp Curry and Green Beans — Tahmina Martelly will use recipes passed down over three generations of her family to prepare green beans and shrimp curry with rice and peas.

Admission is free to all events. In addition to various entertainment stages, there will be crafts demonstrations, bocce ball games, and films. For more information, visit here.

Utah’s job growth and unemployment rate continue to perform much better than comparable national rates, according to the monthly employment report released today by the state’s department of workforce services.

Despite the drag on housing-related industries, the state’s economy remains resilient, especially in the government, health care, and education sectors, Mark Knold, a senior state economist, says. “Yet even cyclical industries like leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing are still growing in the state. Nationally, this is a consumer-lead recession,” he explains. “Job losses undermine the consumer most, while job gains support their strength. Utah’s job gains and the continued outlook for more are the state’s strongest foundation in supporting Utah consumers and why this state has a better chance of staying above the national recession.”

Compared to the nation which is registering only a 0.3 percent growth rate in new jobs, Utah continues to add new positions at a 2.0 percent rate. And, consistent with previous monthly reports, Knold notes that “the approximately 24,800 new jobs in Utah represent about 6.5 percent of all the new jobs added in the United States over the past year, this from a state that comprises less than 1 percent of all United States jobs.”

Some 42,700 Utahns were considered unemployed during April, representing an unemployment rate of 3.1 percent. The nation’s April unemployment rate was 5.0 percent.

There also is evidence that the state can readily absorb new workers. Knold’s following statements are consistent with recent reports by The Brookings Institution and the Pew Charitable Trusts which argue for a revitalized focus on education and training programs for high-skilled jobs. Knold’s money quote follows:

“We still hear of the need for highly skilled workers like engineers in this state. Welders and machinists are also often mentioned. The shortfalls in the latter two occupations are consequences of a long-term national trend. Nationwide, over the past 40 years, manufacturing and production jobs have been downsized and workers replaced by technological advancements. Even though these jobs don’t hold the percentage of the economy that they used to, a generation of labor has aggressively discounted its opportunities and has collectively steered away from its training and potential career possibilities.

“The consequences of that are coming home to roost as the existing pool of these laborers are closing in on retirement en masse. This collective negative psychology and avoidance is now producing a shortage of workers in these often-called middle, yet technical, skill areas. As a result, opportunities are increasing in these skilled occupations that pay a life-supporting wage.”

Yours truly is planning a research essay on the impact of social media networks upon the standings of American Idol contestants once the season closes next week. Naturally, local interest has been huge with the presence of David Archuleta. Perhaps unlike any other season, the online buzz, so to speak, is what has defined this year’s competition and why the AI entertainment property will continue to rule the roost in the multi-layered media environment.

There has been much talk about the show’s ratings being off by as much as by ten percent this year, especially among some of the younger demographics. However, going by the numbers, AI still wins the ratings race hands down and by roughly the same margin as it has when the overall television audience for all network programming was much larger. In other words, AI has shed its viewership roughly proportional to what has been happening industry wide. And, it apparently serves as a strong lead-in for Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen, which follows immediately the competition broadcast. Hell’s Kitchen is enjoying its highest ratings ever.

However, turning to the online media environment, one sees the social networking juggernaut that follows the show and its contestants. BuzzLogic reports that online blog traffic apparently is a good indicator of who should be getting the boot. Take, for example, last week’s report, the morning immediately following Tuesday’s performances:

Contestants after Tuesday night’s performances, listed by influential blogs/posts:

David Cook: 546 / 6543
Jason Castro: 498 / 8013
David Archuleta: 432 / 10,163
Syesha Mercado: 221 / 7400

Money quote from BuzzLogic’s analysis:

“There are some interesting numbers, and deltas, here. David Cook has the most influential blogs writing about him, but the fewest influential posts. Syesha is the inverse – she has half as many blogs posting about her, but a large amount of posts. Which scenario is preferable: more influencers talking about a contestant less frequently, or a smaller number of influencers buzzing more consistently? It will be interesting to see how this nets out. Then, there’s David Archuleta, whose name is associated with more posts than any other contestant at this stage of the game. Jason Castro is in the middle in terms of numbers and reach of influential buzz, but the influencers don’t have anything nice to say. He is the influencer pick to go home.”

This post, of course, is being written before this evening’s performances (May 13) but the researcher in me is willing to predict that Miss Mercado will be eliminated tomorrow evening and that the contest between the two Davids next week will culminate in an Archuleta win. Of course, this could change in light of unexpected performances.

To wit the crowds that appeared in Salt Lake City during Archuleta’s homecoming last week. One cannot ignore the marketing-public relations juggernaut that is represented by precisely the same age group that has some television ratings analysts concerned. Perhaps, AI’s most significant presence has transferred online.

We know that the gap between online and television viewing is closing fast. The Television Bureau of Advertising reports:In January 2008, TVB found that 18 to 34 year-olds spent 60.6 minutes more watching TV per day (206.0 minutes) than they did online (145.4 minutes). That is down from June 2006, when the gap was 137.4 minutes: 246.7 minutes for TV and 109.3 minutes online. Moreover, TV time decreased while Internet time increased.

Other industry studies indicate that TV viewership among the youngest consumers is trailing well behind online activities as consumers in the 18-year-old to 24-year-old range went online an average of two more hours per week than they spent watching TV.

A Harris Interactive study shows that girls are spending a great deal of time in social media networking. While more than half of girls between the ages of 13 and 15 use social networking sites, the number has mushroomed among boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 12. The number tripled in just one year. Industry analysts estimate that more than 15.3 million teenagers actively engage in social media networking online. What none of these studies does well, however, is investigate the extent of multitasking in various media among these young consumers. The anecdotal evidence for this is quite strong and would need solid empirical analysis to confirm these observations.

Going back to American Idol, the prospects bode well for the 17-year-old Murray High School student. Just one small indicator of the coordinated online campaign for Archuleta’s benefit is found here, which includes a post from a Facebook member that outlines in impressive detail a voting checklist for Archuleta fans.

Indeed, this may be the first season where the multi-layered platform of television and online media shaped the ultimate selection of the next American Idol.

Kevin LeStarge’s campy, clever “The Attack of The Pine Cones” took top honors today in Spy Hop’s annual 24-Hour Filmmaking Competition.

The Skyline High School senior’s winning short film was among the 20 youth-directed projects screened during the seventh annual LocoMotion Youth Film Festival, sponsored by Spy Hop Productions and the Utah State Office of Education.

LeStarge, who’s planning to major in business at LDS Business College as he pursues further training in the film-making industry, met the rigorous criteria established for the competition. Instructions for the competition were released on April 25 and young filmmakers were given just 24 hours to submit their entries. Among the criteria: the number 24 had to appear six times (yes, credits counted); the director had the option of either 24 shots or 24 seconds of music, and the line “You idiot, you have a fake thumb.” The film also had to run 3 minutes, 24 seconds, according to Jeremy Nielsen, program director for the festival.

For the competition, LeStarge recruited friends who’ve participated in personal video projects such as “Backyard Battlefields,” which he admitted are as “cheesy” as they sound. Like the cult-classic Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, LeStarge’s pine cone variation is unashamedly camp. The film is available at YouTube here.

LeStarge enjoys the creative side behind the camera. For this project, he used GarageBand for the first time to write original music. He particularly enjoys the work of M. Night Shyamalan, most well known for The Sixth Sense and who has just finished work on The Happening, a sci-fi thriller about a family escaping from a global-scale natural crisis.

The 20 films screened at the festival, selected from more than 60 entries submitted from around the nation, represented an energetic take on social issues where the young filmmakers dig at the grassroots level to confront and challenge notions of apathy and media dominance.

Of particular note was “Kick Me,” a locally produced film by several Spy Hop members, examining the profound effects of bullying from the perspective of the perpetrator as well as the victim.

Spy Hop Productions is a not-for-profit youth media arts and educational enrichment center located in the historic Art Space district of downtown Salt Lake City. It offers programs in filmmaking, interactive design, and sound engineering. Since its inception in 1999, Spy Hop has served more than 10,000 young people from all backgrounds in the Wasatch community and with the help of professional mentors, the work produced by Spy Hop’s young artists has reached a national audience in the millions.