Critically lack of mass

I am so glad that there might not be a 3rd season for Singapore Idol, for the reasons that there isn’t enough of good singers in Singapore.  We may not have to suffer through weeks of bad singing, feeble judging comments and classless hosting.  There isn’t even enough bad attempts during the auditions to make Singapore Idol interestingly funny.

Let’s face it.  In a country of 4 million, take away the senior people, the working class and the babies,  we have about less than 1 million people to make any mass critical enough to make something like Singapore Idol going on and on for years on.

There are a lot of other areas in which Singapore does not have the critical mass for.

Already proven is the failure to sustain more than 2 competing newspaper.  The Today paper won the battle against Streats.  Another proven failure was 2 competing TV broadcasting companies.  Mediacorp is the only standing broadcasting company now.

We have tried to create competition in the transport arena, in the telecommunication arena and in the power supply arena.  So far, telecommunications has some resemblence to competition, but this is due to the rapid developments in technology.  In transport, there’s more of a consortium than anything else.  All players raise price in the same amount at the same time.  In power supply, we haven’t seen other players yet.

We have to recognise that there are some areas that cannot sustain competition due to the shortfall of critical mass in Singapore, and that goes for reality TV.  We will probably do better to create an united environment to support the few talented.  That would be a better use of resources, than to waste resources  killing off our own.