Ken Warwick | American Idol

September 2008
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Aug
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

Archive for the 'Ken Warwick' Category

Ken Warwick Weighs in on the “Irish Girl” controversy

Published by mj January 15th, 2008 in American Idol, Ken Warwick, S7 Spoilers, S7 Audition Eps and Season 7. 11 Comments

MTV.com contacted Idol Executive Producer Ken Warwick for a statement on the seemingly ”professional” backgrounds of some of Season 7’s rumored Top 50:

It’s all part of what makes the early-season “Idol” episodes so mesmerizing: a heady mix of the bizarre, the talented and, of course, the talent-less, all hoping to get famous (or at least get their 15 minutes). The ultimate goal is the discovery of the “diamonds in the rough,” the sublimely skilled singers who have somehow fallen through the cracks. Of course, if you believe the rumors that have been swirling around “Idol” fan sites in recent days, those diamonds are becoming more difficult to find — which is why the show producers have seeded this year’s field of contestants with a handful of ringers: male and female singers who have been signed to major labels, worked with established songwriters and musicians, released albums and even been nominated for Grammy Awards.

The whole thing has created such a stir — and brought into question the very validity of a show created to find undiscovered talent — that MTV News went to “Idol” executive producer Ken Warwick for comment. And while he didn’t deny that some of the season-seven contestants had previous experience, he explained that the process of finding new, never-before-discovered talent has grown increasingly difficult, given the show’s popularity.

Here’s what Ken has to say:

Continue reading ‘Ken Warwick Weighs in on the “Irish Girl” controversy’

Related Posts

Idol to Do a Beatles Theme Night

American Idol Finally Wins an Emmy, and Ryan Seacrest Weighs In

Interview with Ken Warwick

Idol Bits and Pieces

Published by mj September 19th, 2007 in American Idol, News, Ken Warwick, Nigel Lythgoe, Ryan Seacrest and Simon Fuller. 5 Comments

A couple of recent Items from the Hollywood Reporter

I think the headline of this article is a little misleading…

Fox’s ‘Idol’-ized Emmycast demo-lished

I mean, it’s not like Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick produced as they originally planned (they eventually bowed out, claiming they had too much work on their plates). And, host Ryan Seacrest barely took the stage during the entire telecast. Nevertheless, This year’s Emmy telecast was one of the lowest rated evah: Continue reading ‘Idol Bits and Pieces’

Related Posts

Idol Bits and Pieces

Idol Bits and Pieces - Theme for the Top 10 - Songs the Year They Were Born

Idol Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

Idol Bits and Pieces

The Next Great American Band to Debut in October

Published by mj August 7th, 2007 in American Idol, Ken Warwick, Nigel Lythgoe, Simon Fuller and The Next Great American Band. 25 Comments

Real-life stuff has interfered with my blogging (damn reality!) in the past few weeks, so pardon me while I play catch-up…

I wanted to mention The Next Great American Band show which will premier with a two-hour episode on Friday, October 19. I mention it, because I plan to recap it. I think it’ll be a fun fall diversion while we wait for the new season of Idol to start. Yeah?

The show is produced by the Idol folks, Simon Fuller, Nigel Lythgoe, Ken Warwick and Cecile Frot-Coutaz.

A set of judges will narrow the hopefuls down to 10 semifinalists, at which point the American people will take on voting responsibilities, just as they do on “Idol.”

Also like “Idol,” each week the contestants will perform within an established genre, though unlike “Idol” the bands will have the option of either doing original music or covers. The show’s finale will pit three bands against each other in a battle of the band for a contract with 19 Recordings.

Anybody got any spoilers? Heh…

Upcoming Idol Appearances

More News on The Next Great American Band

TV Week Interview with Ken Warwick

Published by mj May 9th, 2007 in American Idol, S6 Finals, Melinda Doolittle, LaKisha Jones, Jordin Sparks, Blake Lewis, Ken Warwick and TV Week. 22 Comments

This week’s TV Week backlot talk interview with Ken Warwick.

Ken on the contestant’s performances:

Continue reading ‘TV Week Interview with Ken Warwick’

Related Posts

Interview with Ken Warwick

TV Week Interview with Ken Warwick: Top 11

Idol to Do a Beatles Theme Night

Interview with Idol Producer Ken Warwick

Ken Warwick Weighs in on the “Irish Girl” controversy

Idol Bits and Pieces

Published by mj May 6th, 2007 in American Idol, News, Ken Warwick, Nigel Lythgoe, Diana DeGarmo, Constantine Maroulis, Tamyra Gray and Simon Fuller. 13 Comments

Ken and Nigel pull out of Emmy Telecast

Ken Warwick and Nigel Lythgoe will not be producing this year’s Emmy telecast as previously announced.

Here’s the official statement, “After we wrapped the enormous effort of ‘Idol Gives Back,’ we looked at our upcoming slate of projects, including the ‘American Idol’ finale and the additional shows we will be involved in this summer, and realized that we could not devote the creative energy and time necessary to make the Emmys outstanding for the academy and Fox,”

Ken Ehrlich, who produced the Emmy’s last year is returning to produce his 4th Emmy telecast. Says the Academy of Television Arts and Science’s CEO Dick Askin, “He [Ehrlich] did a terrific job with the Emmys last year, and we are glad to have him back.”

Diana DeGarmo’s Stalker Sentenced

An Australian woman who hacked into Diana DeGarmo’s My Space and sent her threatening emails and phone calls has been sentenced.

Tanya Maree Quattrocchi, 21, of Oak Park, was released on a community-based order and ordered to serve 150 hours of community service after she was convicted of stalking and blackmail. The court heard the defendant had a limited intellectual ability and had scored an ENTER score of just 16 when she graduated from Ave Maria College in Aberfeldie.

She’s in college, and she’s hacking into MySpace accounts, but she has “limited intellectual ability?” What? If this had been tried in the States, I think the courts would have been a lot tougher.

Constantine Maroulis and Tamyra Gray Begin New Acting Roles

Constantine’s run on the CBS soap “The Bold and The Beautiful” begins on Tuesday May 15 and will run for several months. He’ll play music producer, Constantine Parros, who becomes involved in the life and career of heiress Phoebe Forrester. OMG, this should be hilarious. I’m DVRing the first few episodes. If I find anything snarkworthy, I’ll post it. Heh.

Tamyra Gray begins a stint with the Broadway musical “Rent.” She’ll play the role of Mimi Marquez through November 25.

New Dates for the American Idols Live Tour

The American Idols Live Tour starts in Sunrise FL on July 6th. If everything goes as planned, I’ll be at the Tampa FL show on the 7th. YAY. Check out the dates. If your city wasn’t on the list, it may be now. New dates are being added as we speak.

Simon Fuller discusses Idol Songwriter Contest

In a recent interview American Idol producer, Simon Fuller, talks about the American Idol Songwriter contest. Fuller screened the entries and says the entries include, “a handful of world-class songs.” That remains to be seen. I plan to check out the songs soon. Really, I do.

About this season, Fuller comments, “This has been an intriguing year. It’s been a slow burn in terms of getting to know the talent … It’s more of a journey than ever this year.” Fuller thinks that two or three ”terrific” contestants have emerged out of the contest. He would not say who.

Related Posts

Idol Bits and Pieces

Idol Bits and Pieces - Theme for the Top 10 - Songs the Year They Were Born

Idol Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

Idol Bits and Pieces

Top 8 Results

Published by mj April 11th, 2007 in American Idol, Recaps, Chris Richardson, Melinda Doolittle, LaKisha Jones, Jordin Sparks, Gina Glocksen, Haley Scarnato, Phil Stacey, Sanjaya Malakar, Blake Lewis and Ken Warwick. 97 Comments

J Lo sings a cut from her new Spanish Language album….

And a whole bunch of lame filler stuff, as tonight’s show expands to 1 hour.

Bottom 3:

Phil Stacey
Haley Scarnato
Chris Richardson

Going home:

Haley Scarnato

*****************

Ryan opens the show by taking a poke at the continued survival of the contestant-who-wouldn’t-die, Sanjaya Malakar, all but giving away the fact that Sanjaya is safe this week.

As Ryan walks down the line up of contestants, he says, ”These contestants brought flair, passion and power to our Latin special but even with the guiding star of somebody like Jennifer Lopez, one of them is facing the fire…”

“Who is going home?” asks Ryan At which point, he turns to look at Sanjaya, waits a beat then turns to look at the audience. Sanjaya laughs and pretends to be all “Damn!” The audience laughs, we laugh. It’s not as if Ryan is giving away some big secret. Of course Sanjaya is safe!

In fact, as Ryan chooses the bottom 3, (after 40 minutes of some of the most boring filler evah. Gah, I already miss the 30 minute results show), he continues to toy with Sanjaya, asking him to stand back up and then sit back down again. Can you imagine this going on with any of the other kids? The poor contestant would be peeing their pants, not to mention the audience, who would be aghast at the meaness.

At this point, however, it’s a given that Sanjaya has some magical mojo power that’s gonna keep him safe. Particularly this week, after he turned in his first above-par vocal performance since his initial audition.

Yep. Season 6 is a very weird season.

Celebrity watch: Eva Longoria and Sharon Osbourne are in the audience. Continue reading ‘Top 8 Results’

Related Posts

Season 6 Schedule

Dial Idol: Cease and Desist

Breaking News

Top 24 Results

Ratings News Week 11

TV Week Interview: The Top 8

Published by mj April 11th, 2007 in American Idol, S6 Finals, Chris Richardson, Melinda Doolittle, LaKisha Jones, Jordin Sparks, Haley Scarnato, Phil Stacey, Sanjaya Malakar, Blake Lewis, Ken Warwick and TV Week. 4 Comments

Chuck Ross from TV Week interviews American Idol producer Ken Warwick for the magazine’s weekly Backlot Talk interview.

Ken mentions that tonight, Ryan will be announcing more celebrities guests slated for the big charity event.
Martina McBride will be guest mentor for next week’s country-themed week.
Will there be any surprises tonight? Ken says, “We’re on for an hour, so we are doing a few fill-ins tonight, things have been stretched out and we’ve put a few…new couple of elements in, so it’s going to be worth watching.”

Before sizing up the contestants’ performances, Ken says that Latin music is always difficult for the contestants to sing. He mentions that Gloria Estefan week during Season 3 was challenging for some of the contestants that year. coughjohnstevenscough. Continue reading ‘TV Week Interview: The Top 8′

Michael Johns Will Be Attending the White House Correspondents Dinner this Weekend - Post-Boot AI Extra Interview - VIDEO

Michael Johns Interview: Ryan Seacrest blames his Cruel Elimination Trick on Nigel Lythgoe

Blake Lewis on Ellen Degeneres

Season 6 Idols: Update to the Update…

More American Idol News

Published by mj April 5th, 2007 in American Idol, News, Chris Sligh, LaKisha Jones, Sanjaya Malakar, Ken Warwick, Nigel Lythgoe and Ryan Seacrest. 2 Comments

According to an article in USA Today, Iain Pirie, head of US operations for 19 Entertainment says that, “it’s 95% certain there won’t be a Idol TV special, at least for this year, because effort is being concentrated on the charity special, Idol Gives Back.”

However, the Idol songwriting contest is moving ahead. Here are the details:

Amateur hopefuls — 18 and up with no exclusive publishing deals–can write and record songs and upload them at songwriter.americanidol.com until April 17.
A team headed by Idol creator Simon Fuller will pick 20 songs from those submitted and let fans listen on the website. They will then have a week, starting May 2, to vote for their favorites, one online vote per fan, Pirie says.
Once a winner is picked, a record producer will arrange and produce the song for the Idol finalists, possibly consulting with the songwriter, who will get a one-song, standard deal with 19 Entertainment.
The amateur songwriters will be responsible for putting together the performance for the contest submission.

American Idol producer, Ken Warwick, held a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon. Here are some highlights: Continue reading ‘More American Idol News’

Ratings News: Attack of the Death Star

Ratings News Week 3

Constantine Maroulis and Gina Glocksen to Co-Host this Season’s American Idol Extra

Season 7 Auditions: San Diego, CA

Bits and Pieces

Published by mj April 3rd, 2007 in American Idol, S6 Finals, Ken Warwick, TV Week and Nigel Lythgoe. 2 Comments

This week’s Idol Coach is the legendary singer, Tony Bennett. He’ll be mentoring the kids as they take on the standards.

Bennett, a fan of American Idol, says the contestants can learn a lot from working in front of a live audience, “You learn things like knowing not to stay on the stage too long so you are always welcomed back…I’ve learned everything from my audiences; they have become my best teachers.”

I’m still on vacation, and still playing catch-up. I won’t be watching the show live tonight–I’ll be at the Avalon in Boston watching Taylor Hicks do his thang…

I’ll be recaping the Chicago and Boston shows soon. In the meantime, some items that I missed this week. Continue reading ‘Bits and Pieces’

Related Posts

Idol Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

Idol Bits and Pieces - Theme for the Top 10 - Songs the Year They Were Born

Idol Bits and Pieces

TV Week Interview with Ken Warwick: Top 11

Published by mj March 21st, 2007 in American Idol, News, Ken Warwick and TV Week. 7 Comments

This week’s TV Week interview is up.

Chuck Ross from TV Week magazine interviews producer Ken Warwick this week. They discuss last night’s performances.

Ken was pleased with last night’s show. He said, “Great music, great melodies, good stuff.” He thought Peter Noone and Lulu did a great job with the contestants. He said they were passionate, sensible and intelligent.

Lulu and Peter Noone will be performing tonight.

Ken says that with the big charity event and everything else taking up so much time, the songwriting contest has been put on the back burner. But it may still happen, but is up in the air.

Gwen Stefani will be next week’s special guest.

Contestant rundown:

Haley - She’s had a bit of a tough time, but this week she found her own niche. He thought she was great.
Chris R - He liked Chris’s version of the song.
Stephanie - Ken thought she did a good job of it, considering she did not know the song. Ken mentioned that she’s had throat problems and has been a bit under the weather lately.
Blake - Ken likes the song. Thought Blake “sort of brought it up–made it modern.” He thought Blake did a good job of it.
LaKisha - He thought she did a great job. He didn’t agree with Simon who said it was “old fashioned.”
Phil - Ken thinks the tune is a “good country rock song.” He thought it was pretty good, but agrees with Simon–that Phil does not have that rock edge to his voice. Ken thinks it may or may not become a problem. Ken says it’s tough when he remembers the originals so well.
Jordin - Ken thought she was fabulous. He thinks she is going to do very well in this competition. Ken feels her performances seem effortless.
Sanjaya - Ken says, “It was manic, bless him. He just went for it. If you are going to do something like that, you have to go for it. It caused a stir in the audience.”
Gina - Ken says that Gina did not know the original Stones version very well. She knew another version by someone else. He says she should have based her arrangement on the original–the one folks would recognize.
Chris S - Ken thinks he has a very good voice. Ken loves the song.
Melinda - Ken says, “It’s a great song–it was made for her. She’s a great pro.”