A recent study of West End audience habits, from the Society of London Theater, shows that the prevalence of theater-centric reality TV shows in Britain make a significant portion of theater patrons more likely to go out and see musicals on stage.
Also noteworthy is the comparatively younger audience for British theater than on Broadway. Variety points out that well more than half of Broadway theater-goers are over 35 years old, and almost two thirds of them are over 50. The reasons for this are many and varied -- the relative expense of Broadway tickets being one of them -- but could reality shows be Broadway's fountain of youth?
The U.S. of A has already dipped into the musical reality competition pool with NBC's 2007 flop Grease: You're the One that I Want -- a show that arguably benefited the Broadway revival around which it was centered, though it could be generously described as having unremarkable ratings. 2008's Legally Blonde - The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods performed somewhat better, but being an MTV show, the series didn't quite have the impact on mainstream theater that a network show might.
The UK's shows, by contrast, have been ratings powerhouses, with Andrew Lloyd Webber's Over the Rainbow (in which 20 young hopefuls audition for the role of Dorothy in
a new production of The Wizard Of Oz) debuting with over 7 million viewers. And to you Americans only impressed by American Idol's 20-plus million viewership, bear in mind: the UK has less than one fifth the population of the U.S.