Last week a commenter suggested taking a look at an astrological chart of planetary placements for date and time of the announcement of this year's American Idol. It could be interesting to compare it with natal charts of current leading contestants, to see whether there are clues to success, and if so whether those clues work out in real life.
The finale, with results of the the competition's last round, will take place on Wednesday 26 May 2010, in Los Angeles. The show begins at 8:00/7:00 PM central and will last, according to FOX, 127 minutes. The winner is usually announced during the last minutes of the show.
Chart below is for Wednesday 26 May, Los Angeles at 10:05 PM (allowing 2 mins for the closing razamatazz.) Trouble is though: the time zone thing! Here in central time zone the show will run from 7:00 to just after 9:00PM. In eastern and Pacific (western) time zones it'll start at 8:00 PM. In Los Angeles though, when it's 7:00pm central it'll only be 5:00 PM. How does that work out? It's live (allegedly). I can only assume that it's recorded and broadcast at 8:00 PM in the Pacific time zone. I might be wrong about this though. Anybody know?
As an initial experiment I'll use a chart for 10:05 PM, Los Angeles.
Natal charts of Crystal Bowersox (clear favourite as things stand now); Lee DeWyse, Siobahn Magnus and Casey James, the four contestants currently favoured by bookmakers are below. Two of these contestants, though, will have been eliminated before this final performance on 25 May.
THE FINALE:
As I don't have a birth time for any of the four, this isn't going to be an ideal experiment, but it will throw up any good or bad aspects between transiting planets and some personal planets. Without exact Moon position and rising sign degree we could be missing something crucial. Still - let's see how this works out:
CRYSTAL BOWERSOX
Crystal's natal Moon could be anywhere from 20 Pisces to 3 Aries - that is the area transiting Uranus and Jupiter are around right now: Uranus = change, Jupiter is thought of as helpful and lucky. Transiting Saturn is opposing Uranus/Jupiter though, and therefore also likely to be opposing Crystal's natal Moon. This isn't necessarily bad for her chances of winning, but is probably indicative of the hard work and challenges facing her (as a single mother) if she does win.
LEE DE WYSE
Lee had Jupiter transiting his natal Mercury in the weeks leading up to the finale, giving him a helpful boost. At the time of the announcement of the winner (if my assumption on time zones is correct) Capricorn will be rising at around 5 degrees with Pluto right on the ascendant and conjunct Lee's natal Mars/Neptune conjunction. I cannot guess whether this is fortuitous or not. Pluto = transformation. Mars/Neptune = energy and creativity. Something is going on here.
SIOBAHN MAGNUS
Her Sun/Mercury at 24/21 Pisces are close enough to transiting Uranus/Jupiter to be thought significant. This is similar to the transit to Crystal's Moon, indicating change and some helpful luck, but affecting Sun/Mercury rather than Moon. Again though, Saturn is in opposition to the transiting planets and Siobahn's natal Sun, indicating some challenges to come. Additionally, transiting Pluto is within a few degrees of her natal Uranus in Capricorn - again, not sure whether this is significant or not, but it's worth a mention.
CASEY JAMES
Casey, I think, has the least help from the planets. His natal Sun at 10 Capricorn is within a few degrees of the finale's rising degree, but I doubt that's enough to predict him as winner. Even so, his chart is least affected by the transiting Saturn-Uranus opposition - could this be a good thing ? We shall see.
CONCLUSION : Crystal and Siobahn's charts seem most helpful of the four, but with the Saturn opposition and Uranus involved, an unexpected event could still upset the proverbial apple cart.
The finale, with results of the the competition's last round, will take place on Wednesday 26 May 2010, in Los Angeles. The show begins at 8:00/7:00 PM central and will last, according to FOX, 127 minutes. The winner is usually announced during the last minutes of the show.
Chart below is for Wednesday 26 May, Los Angeles at 10:05 PM (allowing 2 mins for the closing razamatazz.) Trouble is though: the time zone thing! Here in central time zone the show will run from 7:00 to just after 9:00PM. In eastern and Pacific (western) time zones it'll start at 8:00 PM. In Los Angeles though, when it's 7:00pm central it'll only be 5:00 PM. How does that work out? It's live (allegedly). I can only assume that it's recorded and broadcast at 8:00 PM in the Pacific time zone. I might be wrong about this though. Anybody know?
As an initial experiment I'll use a chart for 10:05 PM, Los Angeles.
Natal charts of Crystal Bowersox (clear favourite as things stand now); Lee DeWyse, Siobahn Magnus and Casey James, the four contestants currently favoured by bookmakers are below. Two of these contestants, though, will have been eliminated before this final performance on 25 May.
THE FINALE:
As I don't have a birth time for any of the four, this isn't going to be an ideal experiment, but it will throw up any good or bad aspects between transiting planets and some personal planets. Without exact Moon position and rising sign degree we could be missing something crucial. Still - let's see how this works out:
CRYSTAL BOWERSOX
Crystal's natal Moon could be anywhere from 20 Pisces to 3 Aries - that is the area transiting Uranus and Jupiter are around right now: Uranus = change, Jupiter is thought of as helpful and lucky. Transiting Saturn is opposing Uranus/Jupiter though, and therefore also likely to be opposing Crystal's natal Moon. This isn't necessarily bad for her chances of winning, but is probably indicative of the hard work and challenges facing her (as a single mother) if she does win. LEE DE WYSE
Lee had Jupiter transiting his natal Mercury in the weeks leading up to the finale, giving him a helpful boost. At the time of the announcement of the winner (if my assumption on time zones is correct) Capricorn will be rising at around 5 degrees with Pluto right on the ascendant and conjunct Lee's natal Mars/Neptune conjunction. I cannot guess whether this is fortuitous or not. Pluto = transformation. Mars/Neptune = energy and creativity. Something is going on here.SIOBAHN MAGNUS
Her Sun/Mercury at 24/21 Pisces are close enough to transiting Uranus/Jupiter to be thought significant. This is similar to the transit to Crystal's Moon, indicating change and some helpful luck, but affecting Sun/Mercury rather than Moon. Again though, Saturn is in opposition to the transiting planets and Siobahn's natal Sun, indicating some challenges to come. Additionally, transiting Pluto is within a few degrees of her natal Uranus in Capricorn - again, not sure whether this is significant or not, but it's worth a mention.CASEY JAMES
Casey, I think, has the least help from the planets. His natal Sun at 10 Capricorn is within a few degrees of the finale's rising degree, but I doubt that's enough to predict him as winner. Even so, his chart is least affected by the transiting Saturn-Uranus opposition - could this be a good thing ? We shall see.CONCLUSION : Crystal and Siobahn's charts seem most helpful of the four, but with the Saturn opposition and Uranus involved, an unexpected event could still upset the proverbial apple cart.
7 comments:
Interesting idea.
Too bad there isn’t a "corporate" astrology so you could get an idea which way the sponsors are going to bend the voting to suit their needs. But you know me. I’m just a cynic.
anyjazz ~~~ Hah! I can see you are getting the message!
Poisonous tentacles of The Corporations spread far and wide, even into such places as Idol, the most watched show on TV. Well, they would, wouldn't they?
some tricky issues involved in determining the correct time for the announcement of the winner. ideally, we could run a chart for the actual 'real time' that the winner is announced, regardless of what time this announcement is broadcast on tv. that may be easier said than done.
if we could determine the actual time of the announcement, we could put this chart into the center of a bi-wheel and put one of the contestants on the outside wheel to see how they match up with each other.
my guess is that the winner will have some of his or her natal planets conjoining one or more of the angles of the announcement chart.
the example you used of casey and his 10th degree capricorn sun conjoining the ascendant at the time of announcement is the type of thing we are looking for, which may help point to the winner.
for argument's sake, let's say the show is broadcast live on the east coast. so if people in new york learn the winner at 10 pm or so their time, then that would be around 7 pm LA time. in that case, we would run the announcement chart for around 7 pm in los angeles.
i wonder if there is a way to find out if the show is broadcast 'live', or if it is really what they used to call tape - delayed, or 'plausibly live', which is a great euphemism.
Shawn ~~ I've searched around to see what I could find. On a message board in 2007 someone asked about this time zone thing and was told:
I know from another forum, that Idol was live in Eastern (maybe Central too) but its delayed and shown "as live" at the correct time in Pacific (and probably Mountain).
Followed by:
So does that mean during the finale, the west coast get the result 3 hours later than the East coast? That cant be right, can it?
Yes. It's all pretty complicated, but that's more or less how it works. Only certain events, such as the Academy Awards, are carried live in all four major timezones.
From MSNBC.com, specifically about American Idol:
As with most “live” programming, those in the western half of the United States see a recorded version of what those in the east watched live. After the episode airs, voting opens for those who just watched the show, but not for those who have yet to see it.
Dont their digital provider (DirecTV) have all versions of the FOX channels ?? ie. Fox East/Central/West coast feeds ??
Most DirecTV subsribers get the Fox network via their local Fox affiliate. Keep in mind that American network programming is distributed via hundreds of local stations, some owned by the networks, most not. Only those DirecTV subscribers who cannot receive any local Fox stations can receive a timezone-based version instead. Fox HD, on the other hand, does have timezone-specific (rather than local) versions.
Not sure I understand the last part of that, but it seems that the actual flesh and blood time of the announcement is around 10pm eastern, which would be 7pm in Los Angeles.
I'll do another post on this next week, taking into consideration what you've said, and adding Mike's and Aaron's charts.
Surprising elimination of Siobhan last night! Glad Casey didn't go, but he was in bottom 3. :-(
Sinatra Week next week - am looking forward to that!
Fascinating analysis! Do you have any thoughts on how Mercury retrograde might affect the remaining five contestants (Aaron, Casey, Crystal, Lee and Mike)?
Thanks!
--MShep-NJ
Anon (MShep NJ) ~~ Hi there!
Glad it was of interest.
I'm not sure about Mercury Retro.
If it connects to anything at all, I suppose it should be related to transport or technology, maybe a broadcasting difficulty or mic not working - that sort of thing? I don't see any of them with a close connection to the area between 2 and 12 Taurus where Mercury is doing his thing.
But honestly, I don't know the answer. I'll remember to keep this in mind though as we watch events unfold. :-)
that's great info on the broadcast issue and it may reveal a certain "east and central time zone bias'.
i think you have the info you need to run the charts now, and i look forward to your next post!
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