A lot of conversation this weekend about Idol's place in pop culture. My friends say it's a fad that'll be gone as soon as it came, and I kid them with all sincerity when I note they are clueless about the impact the show has had on American culture.

Actually, I'm not kidding them about that, per se, because I think they're attuned to pop culture, although I'm a tad more familiar with ratings, TV/pop culture history and tend to read trade press way more often. I do enjoy torturing them with the possibility that Idol would only get bigger and stick around for millennia.

Truth is, exaggeration aside, the facts and precedent both suggest I'm closer to being right, for right now.

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker has called it the most impactful show in the history of television, and he's not just paying lip service.

Television executives have no choice but to sit in awe of this five-month-per-year television monster. Unlike some events like the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards, Idol is on about about 50 times over the course of 20 weeks. That's merely a guesstimate on my part; however, what's not a guess is the show's ratings.

As of a couple of weeks ago, the show pulled in a 31 share, four times its nearest competitor. What's stunning about this feat is that not only does Idol do this every night during its annual five-month run, the show has consistently gained audience share during its six-season run.

That does not happen in television. It is like the episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, in which Johnny Fever's reaction time got better the more booze he drank -- during an episode where he and Venus Fly Trap were doing some public service work.

It defies logic, really, and the show has been on long enough such that we could say this trend is actually a pattern. The sample size is plenty large.

However, as I worked out tonight and watched a couple conference tourney games on ESPN, I realized that Idol has a lot more in common with sports than I would have ever thought. The show's growth in popularity and its place in American culture is somewhat like college basketball's big dance.

For two weeks per year, every year, since about 1985 (when the tourney expanded to 64 teams -- now 65), the NCAA tournament is this event that nearly everyone pays attention to in some fashion. Either there is a George Mason that catches our Cinderella fancy, or perhaps the Sooners are making a run at the Final Four (uh, not this year).

The Big Dance takes up network television air time, an annoyance for non-sports fans, and has only gotten bigger over the 22 years since it really became part of pop culture, thanks to Dick Vitale and ESPN, not to forget CBS, which puts on the tourney every year.

The point I was trying to make this weekend is that Idol at this point has to be looked at by competitors as more than a show. It's an event, and to think it can't continue its growth and entrenchment into American pop culture over the next decade is foolish.

Sure, there is the possibility that an event itself brings down the show. All three judges die in a circus accident. The winner gets mired in some sort of conspiracy to overthrow the government. Simons Cowell and Fuller, as well as Nigel Lythgoe, simply decide they've gotten bored with putting the show together, and they decide to spend their days counting money.

However, given that the show dominates the 18-49 demographic -- women and men -- unlike any any multi-episodic show in the history of television by four times what it would need to be wildly successful, Idol could be retired to cable in 10 years with a different set of hosts and automatically be the biggest cable show running, no problem -- profitable and even more entrenched into American culture.

Like the NCAA tournament, Idol attracts viewership across all age groups -- all of them. It skews toward women, but enough men watch the show that it's the most popular show among adult men in America, and it's an advertiser's dream because they can pitch their wares to a public already attuned to Cinderella and the American dream.

Only when NBC's Zucker acknowledged just how powerful the show is did he give the other networks a hope to be competitive because they have been in denial since 2002. As long as executives underestimate the impact Idol has on television and the advertising dollar, the show will be able to cruise along without pressing the pedal.

Years. Decades. They could have an American Idol 25th anniversary show at this rate, although odds make that an improbability.

Nevertheless, its success, its profitability and the precedent set by multi-episodic events that have only grown and grown and grown -- like the NCAA basketball tournament -- demonstrate that its possibility shouldn't be underestimated either.

The best way to counter it is for television executives to realize that they are no longer in the business of developing television shows. That is for chumps; TV innovators are now in the business of creating events that have deep cultural and business impact.

You can hate the society that reflects if you'd like; however, I am offering you the truth, a truth the other networks better get on board with fast.