Reinventing Reality

By Jennie James/Los Angeles

It's been 15 years since Tiffany topped the charts with hits like I Think We're Alone Now, but Simon Fuller imagines her back onstage singing her heart out to a whole new audience--one he has created. At the advanced age of 31, Tiffany has been trying to create buzz (even undressing for Playboy) without much success. But would she take part in a TV talent contest for faded stars--one like American Idol, last summer's smash hit, but with the added pathos of careers in decline? The grand prize would be a recording contract and perhaps the start of a comeback. Tiffany's competitors? Oh, Fuller wants no less than Vanilli, the surviving member of the duo Milli Vanilli (infamous for secretly miming its songs), and Vanilla Ice, the formerly huge white rapper.

"The working title is Second Chance Idol," Fuller tells TIME during a rare interview in his temporary Los Angeles quarters (he also has a home in London). The plan is to "go to people who have had a taste of fame but, sadly, their candle has been snuffed."

This TV show doesn't exist yet, but it just might by summer. If there's one thing reality TV has confirmed, it's that people will do almost anything for 15 minutes of shame. Fuller, 42, a British entertainment entrepreneur, exploits this as well as anyone. He's the creator of Britain's Pop Idol, its offshoot American Idol in the U.S. (also a hit) and the current Germany Seeks the Superstar, which drew almost 7 million viewers to its most recent episode and gives up nothing in schmaltz to the U.S. version. A recording of the show's 10 finalists singing a tune called We Have a Dream has sold more than 250,000 copies.

Fuller has become rich by putting fame-hungry performers in front of audiences eager to see them squirm. His web of privately held entertainment companies, known as the 19 Group, is estimated by industry analysts to be worth more than $300 million. But with reality TV looking ripe to go the way of prime-time soap operas and other fads, the genre must evolve to survive. And Fuller knows it. "In England the bubble's already about to burst," he says, even as he oversees Pop Idol's second British series, a global rollout in China, Norway and other countries, and a set of new reality-TV shows planned with ABC and Fox. His solution is for the format to devour itself. "The clever thing," he says, "is to take it and parody it."

Fuller is a master of blending music, television and manufactured celebrity. In the mid-'90s, he managed the top pop confection known as the Spice Girls. In 1999 he launched the TV band S Club 7 (renamed S Club after a member left), a collection of British twentysomethings who have belted out 10 Top 10 pop hits in Britain and made four TV series. Next came a youth offshoot, S Club Juniors. Naturally, Fuller is planning to create the American Juniors--or the AJs--five U.S. kids ages 8 to 14 whom he will find, groom and turn into a band. The concept might be launched with a song-filled movie about kids at a performing-arts academy--"a cross between Fame and Grease," Fuller says.

Not that Fuller is stepping off the TV money train just yet. A new American Idol series will make its debut Jan. 21 on Fox. More than 50,000 wannabes tried out; 234 were shipped to Los Angeles for further auditions, and 32 made the cut. Fuller has a $15 million--plus deal with ABC for a show to air in March called All American Girl, which will feature a contest of women ages 18 to 25 who can sing, dance, play sports and display some knowledge of the world. "If Idol reinvented the talent show," Fuller says, "then All American Girl will reinvent the beauty pageant." (He has also persuaded NBC to feature four fresh goofballs in an updated version of the 1960s concocted-pop-band sitcom hit The Monkees. The New Monkees is scheduled to air in September.)

Earlier this month, the winner and the runner-up from the first American Idol series, Texan Kelly Clarkson and Pennsylvanian Justin Guarini, started filming an American Idol movie, a romantic comedy written by Fuller's brother Kim. The working title is To Justin from Kelly. We predict that Ben Affleck and J. Lo have nothing to worry about, but, hey, who knows?

How did we get here? Like any virulently successful media life-form, reality TV has mutated into an array of species. It evolved from such primitive organisms as America's Funniest Home Videos, reached a Darwinian plateau with "watch and dial" shows like Big Brother, in which viewers voted by phone to evict or endorse roommates, and morphed into such elaborate creatures as Frontier House, a reality time-travel show in which families spent months living in the conditions of a bygone era. Proof that anything goes is The Osbournes--the verite look at the domestic life of aging rocker Ozzy Osbourne--and The Anna Nicole Show, which will remain undescribed here. "Reality TV has become a staple, just like drama and comedy," says Mike Darnell, executive vice president of special programming at Fox.

Music-based reality shows emerged in most markets in 2001, with Europe's Popstars and Fame Academy--the latter produced by the Dutch program developer Endemol Entertainment, which also created Big Brother. The formats differed slightly; the aim of Popstars was to assemble a band, while Pop Idol crowned an individual. Winners got record contracts, and some of their songs enjoyed startling success. Pop Idol winner Will Young's debut release, the double-A-side single Evergreen/Anything Is Possible, became Britain's fastest-selling single ever. Kelly Clarkson's single Before Your Love/A Moment Like This reached No. 1 on the U.S. charts.

Although most reality shows--not just Simon Fuller's--do well initially, ratings have become erratic. The 2002 season of Big Brother attracted a large audience in Britain, but the French version drew only 4.6 million telephone votes, against 22.5 million for 2001. In Spain Fame Academy--Operacion Triunfo--continues to pull in high ratings, but the British version was so poorly received that wags dubbed it Lame Academy. "For a while, any reality show was going to get viewed," says Darnell, "but now people will become more discerning."

The discerning crowd currently likes the American Idol format, which spends several months publicly culling the herd to about 10 finalists and then launches a series of up-close-and-personal, sudden-death sing-offs. This is the brainchild of three Simons--Fuller came up with the concept, but it was fine-tuned with the help of Simon Cowell, a music-industry executive (and the acerbic judge in the U.S. and British versions) and Simon Jones, head of FMusic TV, part of FremantleMedia, the company that jointly owns and produces the Idol format globally. South Africa and Poland have had their versions, the Netherlands is deep into its own, versions in Norway and Belgium (Idool) started this month, and a pan-Arabic version is scheduled for February.

Idol not only helps Fuller discover new talent but also lets him feed all the various parts of his mini-conglomerate, including an artist-management company, a TV-production company and a music publisher. He has first option to sign whoever wins (indeed, whoever makes the top 10), taking a 15% to 20% cut of the winner's income. He can then deploy one of the songwriters he manages--including Cathy Dennis, who with Rob Davis co-wrote the Kylie Minogue hit Can't Get You Out of My Head--to pen tunes for his singers. (Dennis helped write Clarkson's No. 1 single.) And there's revenue from merchandise, like T shirts, and from Idol concert tours.

Some industry watchers predict that Idol will generate as much as $155 million in the next three years in Britain alone, including ad revenue and record sales. In the U.S., Fox paid about $1 million an episode for American Idol's 25-show run, and such a sum seems very reasonable in retrospect. Ford, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Clairol and Old Navy, among others, have signed on as advertisers for this year's version.

Though he has amassed a fortune selling access to celebrity, the never-married Fuller has kept a low profile by industry standards. In spite of the frenzy always surrounding him--when among industry types, he is literally pulled in all directions--his tanned face often sports a mellow half-grin. He is personable and loves to touch, offering hugs and hearty handshakes to anyone within reach.

Of course, Fuller's brand of evanescent, assembly-line pop has been blamed for an alleged decline in more original music. But pop has always been disposable--that's part of its tacky charm. Says Ged Doherty, president of BMG Music Division U.K.: "What reality TV has shown is that if you give the public something they actually want, they will buy it in the hundreds of thousands."

Not all music reality-TV stories have a happy ending. Hear'Say, the band formed from Popstars in 2001, split up after being jeered in live performances. But the reality shows undoubtedly will keep coming until the public has had more than enough. CBS just launched an updated version of Star Search, the talent show for singers, models and comedians, with Arsenio Hall playing the old Ed McMahon role of host. The USA network is prepping Nashville Star (guess what kind of music). Endemol is trying to sell a U.S. version of the Soundmix Show, which looks for the best imitators of famous acts.

So could Fuller's Second Chance Idol genuinely reignite the careers of its contestants? Sure. And Tiffany is, in fact, game. The greatest obstacle to her comeback, she tells TIME, is that "people have that vision of me as a mall girl. It's time for me to reintroduce myself as an adult." As for Fuller, he's already poised to move on. About music-talent shows, he says, "You've got to get in there while it's hot and get out before it's cold." --With reporting by Tadeusz L. Kucharski/Warsaw, Andrew Rosenbaum/Amsterdam, Ursula Sautter/Bonn, Adam Smith/Paris and Jane Walker/Madrid

With reporting by Tadeusz L. Kucharski/Warsaw, Andrew Rosenbaum/Amsterdam, Ursula Sautter/Bonn, Adam Smith/Paris and Jane Walker/Madrid