Australian Idol (season 2) - Overview

Overview

As well as the five larger cities, the judges also visited Canberra, Hobart, Darwin and Tamworth this year. Of the twelve finalists, three were from Sydney, two were from Melbourne, and one each from Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Hobart, Perth, Canberra, Adelaide and Bega.

The winner was Casey Donovan. Runner up Anthony Callea (2nd), Courtney Murphy (3rd), Hayley Jensen (4th) and Chanel Cole (5th). The final 2, as well as Ricki-Lee Coulter (7th), were the only contestants of the Top 12 to score hits, with Callea ending up the highest seller with his first release of "The Prayer" being named the second highest selling song of the last decade by ARIA in January 2009. Chanel Cole and Daniel Belle teamed up under the label Spook to release an album in October 2005, and a bootleg album for Chanel was also released in November 2005. Ngaiire Joseph (Top 30 contestant) and Marty Worrall released a single each in late 2005, and Hayley Jensen released an album in September 2007. To this date Anthony Callea is the only Idol contestant to make the final 3 without being in the bottom 2 or 3 throughout the course of the show. For this second series of Idol, the Grand Finale remains the highest rated Idol show in the whole 5 series.

On a darker note, Telstra, a major sponsor of the series, made an embarrassing error when they issued a series of half-page advertisements in major newspapers congratulating Donovan on her victory, with a reference to her website. However, the address was incorrect, leading to a website about gay porn star Casey Donovan, rather than the singer's. The company issued a prompt apology upon realising their mistake.

After this season, judge Ian Dickson bowed out of the series, later to appear in the Seven Network reality TV shows My Restaurant Rules, Dancing with the Stars and most recently, Australian Celebrity Survivor. The 2004 season was also notable for an Asian contestant named "Flynn", who sang the Freestylers song "Push Up" after being found from a terrible audition, in the same vein as William Hung.