BREAKING: Idol Schedule Set – Auditions Cut Back, Hollywood Round Expanded, Top 36 Coming to Hollywood, Wildcard Round Brought Back!
Snipped from an internal FOX Memo distributed this morning. (thanks sumIdol!)
FOX Network Program Executive Council
DECEMBER 2008 MINUTESAMERICAN IDOL When will the schedule and any new details about this season be released?
January through March details will hopefully be released before the Holidays. All episodes will be Tuesday-Wednesday. No Thursdayà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s planned; same overall number of hours as last year. There will be 3 weeks of auditions and 2 weeks of Hollywood rounds. There will be 36 contestants coming here to Hollywood as opposed to 24 last year. There will be a wild card week and there will continue to be 12 contestants in the Finals. There will be a couple of more 2 hour shows than in the past. Promotional thrust will have fewer bad singers and more à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹aspirationalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ singers. There will be no Idol Gives Back.
So, lets summarize!
- American Idol will be sticking to its Tuesday/Wednesday schedule – Not a surprise
- There will be 3 weeks of auditions, down from 4 the past few years - YES! Four weeks of auditions, particularly with the bad singers taking up the bulk, had become interminable.
- There will be a Top 36, rather than a Top 24 – Hm…
- The Wild Card Week will be re-introduced- Hm…
- No Thursdays planned- and Hm…
- There will be 2 weeks of Hollywood Rounds – In the past, there would be at least 3 episodes of Hollywood, which made for some really compelling TV. I think the show really suffered when they cut these back to shoehorn in more crappy auditions. This is good news
- There will be a Top 12 as in previous years – Just as it should be.
- Promotional thrust will have fewer bad singers and more à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹aspirationalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ singers. There will be no Idol Gives Back. - Fewer bad singers? Hallelujah. It was getting to the point where I could not stomach the auditions anymore, they became so predictable and contrived. I wonder if the death of auditioner Paula Goodspeed has impacted this decision at all. With a tough economy gripping the nation, giving Idol Gives Back a rest is a good idea.
I’m a little unclear as to how the Semi-final/Wildcard round will play out. It’s not really outlined in this memo. Will they go back to the way they did it Seasons 1-3–which was to have groups of contestants perform each week, with the Top vote getters moving on to the Top 12? The Wildcard round had rejected contestants come back to perform again, filling the remaining Top 12 slots…
Peeps, what do you think?
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34 Responses to “BREAKING: Idol Schedule Set – Auditions Cut Back, Hollywood Round Expanded, Top 36 Coming to Hollywood, Wildcard Round Brought Back!”
I personally do NOT like the way the semifinals were carried out in S1-3. It allowed the one-hit-wonders to advance and greatly decreased the chances of the people who didn’t get much airtime.
And like Kristen mentioned, just think about who the Top 12 would have been in S4-7. I personally don’t think Cook would have advanced past the first week if he had been stuck in a group with say, Michael Johns and David Archuleta (who were pimped to the max prior to semifinals).
I’m glad to hear that the auditions will be shorter – I hated that part – and that the Hollywood rounds will be longer – I always wished they would show more of that.
The Wildcard round was also fun and I’m glad it’s coming back. It’s a chance for the audience to save some people that the judges might not select.
I’m also glad it’s 2 days a week at first and not 3. That was overkill.
So far it sounds good to me. As for Paula’s accusations, she is pretty nutso but I also wouldn’t put it past the producers to pull that sh*t on her.
Wait a sec…I don’t get this Top 36 invited to Hollywood thing. There are usually WAY more than 24 or even 36 invited to Hollywood Week. Hollywood is where the Top 24 are picked. I don’t get it!!!
Hollywood week is also one of my favortie parts of the competition. I feel like that’s when AI really gets going.
More emphasis on the aspirational singers makes me happy too. I’m so tired of the bad auditions.
I’m a little confused about the new system, and I kinda miss the wildcard. I’m ready for anything. But overall, I’m ready for AI!
Bring. It. On!
I do like the changing of things around. Simply put, NO single method of choosing the eventual top group would satisfy everyone, so may as well just try this.
I enjoyed the wild card years myself, but also liked when they changed things up a bit. I always think how Idol would not have had Clay Aiken without a wild card pick which ultimately gave the viewers the famous Clay/Ruben duel that made that year really interesting, not to mention a year of some great, great singing.
Time for some fresh approaches (even if slightly rehashed) to how they do things.
Same here. Jasmine Trias and John Stevens, anyone? Are the producers’ memories really that short?
The wildcard round is not a bad re-addition to the format, but I really don’t like the idea of people advancing straight to the top 12 on the basis of one performance.
I AM glad that the Hollywood rounds are going to be longer. That’s one of my favorite parts of the competition.
The Top 50 are going to be whittled down to the Top 36 instead of a Top 24. They do this in “Hollywood” as well. Actually, it’s Pasadena, and it happens in January.
Technically there are 2 “Hollywood Rounds” The one in November that has about 200 people, and then again in January, when the 50 are whittled down to the contestants who will compete live on the show.
The idea that Clay Aiken would not have made it to Hollywood without the wild card round in which he kicked ass with Elton’s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On me” is reason enough for me to love that part of the show.
No way Reuben won that contest but it all worked out in the end. “Not winning” may have been one of the best things to happen to him.
So, I love the Wild card round and this will be the first year since 2005/06 that I have been really interested and somewhat excited about idol.
MJ…just want to let you know that I dropped by here because there is a story about the upcoming changes to AI on Yahoo. I clicked on the story and your blog is listed as the source of the story! Congratulations.
The story was written by Access Hollywood and is in the OMG section of Yahoo, for anyone interested.
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/changes-coming-to-american-idols-season-8/16537?nc