IT'S ALL over for another year. The land has been scoured for talent and a winner has been found. Lucia Evans was the last one standing when You're a Star, TV's equivalent of a junior hurling clash between neighbouring parishes fought with text messages instead of hurleys, came to an end.

The woman with the mighty voice is set to follow in the footsteps of previous winners Mickey Joe Harte, Chris Doran and the McCauls. After that sentence, I'm sure you feel sorry for her already.

The well-worn line about You're a Star is that it's an opportunity for overlooked musical talent to have its day. This year's show handed the winner an array of recording, publishing and management contracts instead of the usual one-way ticket to feature amongst the Eurovision also-rans. One of the judges, Thomas Black, said that these prizes meant the show attracted "the best the country has to offer".

But it's patent drivel to say that a prime-time TV show like this can unearth a great, untapped reservoir of musical talent. TV is about producing TV stars, hit shows and huge ratings, not finding and developing musical talent. You're a Star is no exception, and it adheres to a strict format where the momentum is produced by contrived drama. With its predictable catfights between judges, creation of artificial suspense and predictable footage of contestants bursting into tears at the slightest growl from Brendan O'Connor, You're a Star favours soap opera sentiments over musical talent every time.

And it's a huge, cynical fallacy to say there's all this great unseen talent out there waiting to be found when You're a Star rolls into town. As Black knows only too well from his previous job as an A&R manager with EMI Records, any act operating in Ireland with a scintilla of talent is already on the radar of record labels and publishing companies.

Every day of the week, there are talent scouts of one ilk or another running the rule over would-be Kurt Cobains and KT Tunstalls in every corner of the country. If an act has potential, they will attract attention sooner or later.

Of course, You're a Star will claim that it accelerates this process, but most acts require careful nurturing rather than an express elevator to the top floor. Those involved in pimping the show know this only too well, yet TV talent show winners are lumbered with so much expectation that they inevitably crumble. Most enjoy a huge hit with their debut single and then the public moves quickly onto someone else.

There may be a widely held view that critics are fickle, but that's nothing compared to the general public. Just ask Six or the McCauls about what happened when they lost their TV props. The McCauls' recent appearance at Ballydung Manor with Podge and Rodge is already the stuff of TV legend, the show wickedly switching to an ad break when the duo started to sing.

There's no doubt that RTÉ will persist with You're a Star. The national broadcaster may bury Other Voices in the nether regions of the TV schedule, but You're a Star will maintain its position in the prime-time grid because it's light entertainment nirvana. The ratings are healthy and the revenue from all those text votes must be impressive.

Yet these talent search shows have finite appeal. At time will come when the public realises that it has been sold a pup and votes

for future TV presenters rather than chart-toppers and stadium-fillers.

Changes in the broadcast landscape will also impact on shows like You're a Star. DVD box sets, BitTorrent downloads and even YouTube.com will mean there are fewer and fewer must- see TV shows which can pull a mass audience, and thus less of a budget to splurge on talent search shows.

None of this will unduly bother Lucia Evans as she sets out on the yellow brick road. But let's hope for her sake that she won't be visiting Ballydung in a year's time.