170 Reality TV

After the American Idol results show, I was trying to visualise the idea of 97.5 million, that is, the number of votes that the show received for the finale. Ryan Seacrest said and I quote, that the number is larger than the population of Canada (the second largest country in the world, in terms of area), Ireland, Spain and Australia (the largest island in the world, if it is allowed to be called an island). As a matter of fact, that is true:

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31 million (Canada) + 3 million (Ireland) + 40 million (Spain) + 19 million (Australia) = 95 million

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Besides what he stated, 97.5 million...

• ...is only smaller than the population of 11 out of 200-odd countries in the world: China, India, US, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Japan and Mexico.
• ...is also 1.7% of the world population, and 35 % of the US population. It is also more than 4 times the population of Malaysia, and about 14 times the population of Singapore
• ...is slightly less than the number of websites on the Internet today, the number of iPods that have been sold, and about the number of bytes of music in a typical CD.
• ...is also about the speed the Earth revolves around the Sun in miles per hour.
• ...is slightly less than the number of votes for the George W. Bush for president.
• ...is 3 times more than the number of seconds in a year.
• ...means that there were about 24 million votes per hour, 400000 votes per minute and 6700 votes per second, in the 4-hour voting period after the American Idol show.

Now that's a big number...