In their MTV-defining ‘80s hit, the Buggles declared that “Video Killed the Radio Star,” but recent years later, it’s beginning to seem as though Radio Killed the TV Star instead.

Reality TV shows and talent contests such as American Idol and The Next Great American Band let viewers vote for up-and-coming musical acts.

However, most of these artists simply disappear before their first single can hit the airwaves. Heck, does anyone even remember who won the first six seasons of American Idol?

With season seven of the musical nightmare kicking off on January 15, this seems like a good time to take a look back at the past winners, and think about whether they’ve had an influence on pop music, or whether they simply faded away as soon as the credits rolled.

The first season of American Idol was a resounding success, and the big winner was Kelly Clarkson who scored huge hits with songs such as “Since U Been Gone,” but what about runner-up Justin Guarini?

An unfortunate look-alike for the Simpsons’ cartoon character Sideshow Bob (see the two together, here), the big-haired Guarini’s most notable career-move was co-starring with Clarkson in the embarrassingly awful movie musical, “From Just to Kelly.”

Season two found a friendly rivalry developing between Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken. Studdard won amid controversy that problems with the voting system may have skewed the results in his favor.

Despite coming in second place, Clay Aiken outshined Studdard and became a multi-platinum selling artist with a hit Christmas album and pop songs such as “Invisible.”

In 2004, the spotlight was stolen by the charmingly awful singer William Hung, but the prize went to Fantasia Barrino.

Fantasia drew attention for her revealing book and film, Life is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story, but season three’s biggest star was Jennifer Hudson,who gave an award-winner performance in the film Dream Girls.

The fourth season was a close contest between rock’n’roll singer Bo Bice and country gal Carrie Underwood, but anyone with a radio knows that Underwood was the big winner.

Since winning the American Idol title in 2005, Underwood has won a number of Grammy Awards, Country Music CMA Awards thanks to songs such as “Before He Cheats.”

Things didn’t go quite as well for grey-haired season five champ Taylor Hicks, as fourth place contestant Chris Daughtry proved to be the season’s break-out star. His rock band, Daughtry, released a Grammy-nominated album in 2007 featuring the hits “Home” and “It’s Not Over.”

Endearingly ditsy sixth place finalist Kellie Pickler also had a country hit with “Red High Heels.”

The most recent season of the show crowned Jordin Sparks as the winner, while quirky, beat-boxing runner-up Blake Lewis quickly cashed in with his debut album, Audio Day Dream.

Sparks scored a hit with her song “Tattoo,” although it seems unlikely that the forgettable pop singer will make the same splash as Clarkson or Underwood.

In short, an appearance on the show certainly doesn’t ensure enduring success.

While a handful of success stories emerge from the show, most of the contestants are forgotten about almost instantly. Even the annual concert tour featuring the top 10 finalists isn’t enough to keep people interested in artists such as Jim Verraros, Ryan Starr or Sanjaya Malakar.

So what’s left for season seven?

Probably, nothing new.

As always, the best episodes will be the early episodes featuring the awful auditions.

And, while every terrible contestant who gets sent home emotionally declares, “You haven’t heard the last of me!,” odds are, we have–unless they get arrested or something.