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'American Idol' activates its crisis plan

By: Susan Iskiwitch | 02/29/2008

What do you do when youth and inexperience trump media training? You activate your crisis plan.

This is exactly what Ryan Seacrest did last night on "American Idol" when a teen contestant who was voted off visibly broke down on stage. “I can't sing,” Alaina Whitaker said, in reference to the tradition that eliminated contestants sing a song immediately following their elimination and before leaving the show. Oh no! In the mind of a viewer, the question comes to mind, “What are they going to do now? They aren't scheduled to go to commercial for two minutes.”

With complete ease, and most likely with a plan for this type of situation already in place, Seacrest was able to offer his own commentary to the eliminated teen and solicit feedback from the judges before offering Whitaker one more opportunity to sing (she took it) and preventing a potentially embarrassing situation from unfolding on national television.

The "American Idol" media trainers appear to be doing a good job – training dozens of young, fresh individuals to maintain their cool in front of millions and millions of viewers. When one of the individuals is unable to reference his or her training, it's nice to see that a secondary plan is put in motion.

Posted in Crisis Communications, Issues and Crisis Management