Lox, you're so busy deconstructing the media martketplace you forget that many who viewed Susan's video DON'T get or DON'T WATCH the program(s) that pit one contestant against another. The response to her YouTube video was something all out of proportion to the program itself, way beyond what you describe in your pros and cons media nanny cogitations. Not everyone is as gullible and shallow as you suggest, and her performance broke free of the armature of the "talent show" weeks ago. This isn't about Britain's Got Talent. This IS about a lot of people who happen to think that Susan has a beautiful voice and is, if allowed, going to emerge into the music world as a mature performer with a rather fairy tale aura. Susan's gifts are very real, Smedley, as I think you and many others will come to recognize sooner rather than later, once the nonsense of these television programs is over with.

What you're missing is the most important moment in the first audition, the moment when Susan finished singing and turned around to walk off of the stage before the judging began. She went out there to sing. She didn't expect to win, she proved something to herself, but if she was accustomed to being judged by her looks, she apparently (possibly) assumed this was as much as she was going to get out of the program where beautiful people generally reign. She had a chance to prove she could sing to a big audience and she took it. Forget the game show blather. Let her get past the incredible pressure of competing, and she will shine.

Personally I blame Whitney Houston - a great singer until she started shouting a few bars into 'I Will Always Love You'. The world fell at her feet & ever since then, battering-ram bellowing has been mistaken for real skill.

No Whitney wasn't the first. I was disappointed with several of Barbra Streisand's albums during the 80s and early 90s because she seemed to be bellowing out her songs, not singing. They were way too loud.

SRS