Now in its fifth year, "American Idol" has become a ratings juggernaut and a national obsession. It handily defeats the toughest competitors, even the Winter Olympics and "Lost."

	Last week, Kellie Pickler was voted off "American Idol." Click photo for larger image.

This season, the singing contest has hit its highest note yet: An average of 31 million Americans are tuning in to watch Chris Daughtry, Paris Bennett, Taylor Hicks and the others vie for instant success and celebrity, to follow in the recording contract footsteps of previous Idols Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia and Carrie Underwood.

Last year, the show that effectively handed Fox its first trophy in the race for 18-to-49-year-olds for the whole season became a bona fide phenomenon with an average of 26 million viewers.

So, what is it that has so captivated America? Is it Simon Cowell's biting way with words, Paula Abdul's antics, Randy Jackson's lingo? Perhaps it's the sardonic interplay between Cowell and Ryan Seacrest? Or is there something in the show that speaks to the wannabe celebrity in all of us?

The Los Angeles Times asked network executives, writers, historians and music executives to dissect the show to solve the mystery of why "American Idol" has come to rule the airwaves.

Kurt Andersen, novelist and host of public radio's "Studio 360":

I am [a fan], I admit guiltily. I don't care about the actual music. I like the really terrible people and watching Simon Cowell telling them they're rubbish.

When I was a kid, we had "Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour" and "Star Search," so it's not like an entirely new genre. In this age, many millions of Americans are obsessed with celebrity for its own sake, and obviously people who participate have a chance to become famous. And people watching get off on that vicariously.

Barry Weiss, chief executive/president of Zomba Label Group:

This is really the new pop. If you see what's happened with "High School Musical" from Disney Channel/Buena Vista Records, and you look at what's happened here with "American Idol," music on TV is a huge phenomenon outside of America. It's been untapped in America. It's just been totally untapped. I don't think anybody who is not from America is surprised at all by the success of "American Idol" and what it has meant to the music industry at large. It's a salient point that music and television go together really, really well -- and real exposure of music, not necessarily an artist doing one song on a TV show sort of thing.

The other element is plain old human interest. People love a competition. They love a beauty contest. And they love rooting for people. It combines everything that people love. They love rooting for the underdog. All those things combined have helped make it the phenomenon that it is.

Neal Gabler, cultural historian and author of "Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality":

The most important thing is the sense of empowerment. It truncates the process of someone becoming a star. Ordinarily it takes years of training, years of hits and misses, years of working in clubs trying to land a recording contract. [The show] makes us the ones who are ultimately responsible. It says to the whole entertainment industry, "You are not in control. We are."

Generally [the winners are] not the kinds of people who would ever have made it. Kelly Clarkson is too fat. Ruben Studdard is too fat. [Runner-up] Clay Aiken is too geeky. It operates on the principle that people who never would have made it otherwise will make it because of us, our magnanimity. Whoever wins is going to be a star. It's not only dramatic, but there is something almost moving in taking a Kelly Clarkson ... and giving her that gift.

That is the greatest gift you can give in modern America. It's about our empowerment.

Lauren Zalaznick, president of Bravo:

What is so great about the popularity of "Idol" -- although no [other network] enjoys being steamrolled every Tuesday at 8 and all the other hours that it's on -- is that, especially in the corporate world, we're ever more obsessed with the alchemy of a hit. "Idol" proves that you're not in control once creative media hits its designated end point: the viewers. It drives people crazy.

I don't know why it's happening. It's a little bit of vaudeville. It's a little bit of "The Gong Show." But that still doesn't guarantee why this particular incarnation of this particular genre is this outsized of a hit. It's a phenomenon -- meaning that it is not reproducible.

Jacob Austen, author of "TV-a-Go-Go: Rock on TV From American Bandstand to American Idol"

Through the '60s, families watched TV together. All the shows were designed for the entire family. It didn't break up demographics. "The Ed Sullivan Show" would have an act for the kids, but it would be a pop singer, an opera singer or a juggler -- things that would be for the whole family because people only had one TV.

So "American Idol" is a throwback. It's a very simple idea, but it's actually pretty revolutionary at this point because things are really broken up into "now-casting" instead of broadcasting, "now-casting" of a demographic.

The other thing that makes it different is that there's an idea these days that everybody wants to be an insider. Everybody has to know what the box office is for different films this week and what the ratings are. This show feeds to that. On the one hand, on any game show you're supposed to be watching at home and pretending you're playing, but this one, instead of pretending that you're a person singing, you're sitting in the same chair as the three judges. It's really a key that Paula and Randy are inarticulate because the viewers feel like they are as good or a better judge of talent than these professionals.

John Witherspoon, actor ("Fridays," "Boomerang") and voice of Granddad on Adult Swim's animated "The Boondocks"

If I miss an episode, I don't let anyone tell me about it. I stay in a cone of silence. It's like a football game. I don't want to know the score until I see the game.

I love to see that people are really singing their hearts out. Everyone wants to succeed. They all want that money, even if they can't hit a note.

And sometimes it's so cruel. This girl got booted off because she forgot the words to a Stevie Wonder song. Hell, Stevie Wonder would probably forget the words to his songs.