'Quality over quantity' wins big

12 April 2012 - 02:33 By ANDILE NDLOVU
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One of the top 100 Idols contestants, Caroline Borole, 22. M-Net has denied rumours of the show's decline Picture: TEBOGO LETSIE
One of the top 100 Idols contestants, Caroline Borole, 22. M-Net has denied rumours of the show's decline Picture: TEBOGO LETSIE

The number of IdolsSeason 8golden ticket holders might be down, but producers deny interest in the show is on the slide.

Instead, M-Net insists the judges have sought to find "quality over quantity", in handing out a strict 89 golden tickets for the theatre phase in Sun City, beginning next Monday.

In the past three seasons, the judges handed out an average of 99 tickets.

Aside from the traditional big cities of Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg (Sandton Convention Centre) - Soweto's Walter Sisulu Hall in Kliptown was added to the audition dates.

A massive drive was launched to try and encourage apathetic Sowetans. New co-producer and host Proverb got big-name friends - including rapper Khuli Chana, DJs Naves and SPHEctacula, Kabelo "Bouga Luv" Mabalane, Loyiso Bala, former YFM presenter Dineo Ranaka, Channel O presenter and Rhythm City actor Lungile Radu and DJ Sbu - to draw residents to the auditions.

Channel spokesman Lani Lombard said: "Even though there are fewer golden ticket winners this year, we believe that the overall standard is higher than in previous years. The judges don't keep tabs of the number of contestants going through as they base their decisions on the audition of the singer in front of them."

She said there were more venues during previous seasons, which contributed to higher numbers, and that auditions had "exceeded expectations".

Proverb, real name Tebogo Thekiso, had said in February: "Because Mzansi [Magic] is involved, we have to try to get a representative turnout. We battled with turnout in Soweto before, so we're trying to revitalise things and dangling the Idols carrot for the people of Soweto."

The finalists from the theatre phase will sing for the public's vote from July 21.

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