FOX Reportedly Negotiating 'American Idol' Renewal - Report
American Idol may be in freefall where ratings are concerned, but FOX apparently still sees value in the franchise.
According to sources close to the production, American Idol will not be cancelled following this (in ratings terms) disastrous current season. Yes, American Idol XIV appears to be happening. However, it's not without a catch.
Sources are promising a "more compact version of Idol as it enters its golden years." Reportedly, many behind the scenes believe that the key to rescuing Idol from its vacuum of ratings despair is decreasing the time commitment expected of viewers. Executives are looking to shorten Season 14 by approximately one month, in addition to condensing the time commitment to one night per week, adopting the Dancing With the Stars combination performance/results show format, and jettisoning the two-night format.
Credit: FOX
"At this point, 'less is more' is where its headed," said one of the sources. And with that, I'm immediately reminded of the glory years of Idol, when results shows were a filler-free half-hour, and performance shows dropped to a single, similarly filler-free hour once we got down to single digits in the contestant pool. Naturally, one-hour performance shows wouldn't exactly be doable in an era of combined performance/results shows. In fact, a lot would change about the show with that format adjustment: presumably, the Top 4 would go on Hometown Visits, since we wouldn't know who the Top 3 were until the show goes on the air. We also might get fewer guest performances, if we get any at all. But then, I'm not sure any fans would exactly be hurting if they ditched the next Royal Teeth appearance.
As for Season 13, the scaling-back process has already begun.
Tomorrow night marks the first half-hour results show of Season 13, as the show was bumped back to the 9:00 PM timeslot following the premiere of Hell's Kitchen. You'd be forgiven for thinking Idol was on the chopping block from how FOX appears to be prioritizing a cooking competition over what was formerly its most lucrative franchise. Talk of a scaled-back Idol recalls similar talks of a slimmer version of The X Factor USA, from the talk of a shorter season to the proposal of a one night per-week format. Essentially, FOX was faced with a choice: cut costs to make the low-rated X Factor viable, or cut bait altogether and find a way to fill the three-hour programming gap its cancellation would leave behind. FOX ultimately went with the latter decision, and one would imagine history could repeat itself here, despite what insider sources are suggesting.
The judging panel isn't exactly cheap, and this season's relatively minimalist set still looks like it costs a small fortune. This is to say nothing of the cost of licensing songs for the contestants to perform. Hell, when the show was on top of the mountain, FOX was still stingy with its pocket book, as far as shelling out the dough to clear more current, popular songs was concerned. It's why we ended up with multiple iterations of Lieber and Stoller Week, or the Great American Songbook, which consisted mostly of standards that weren't going to break the bank. The show is only just now catching up to competitors like The Voice in terms of featuring more current music, so I'm not sure the show would be able to survive having to scale back its catalog (unless certain songs being featured this season have been cleared in perpetuity, and not just on a per-season or one-time use basis).
With that said, one of the more surprising complaints I've seen about this season is that the lack of classics means we get less invention and challenge from these contestants, who are mostly allowed to remain in their wheelhouse without ever having to branch out and try something new. I can see where that complaint might come from, but I actually think this has been one of the better seasons of the last, say, four years. Or, at the very least, it's one of the more talented groups of contestants, since I'm not even sure there's a clear frontrunner. I guess you could make the argument that Alex Preston is out in front, but I don't think his win is anywhere near the sure thing that, say, the wins of Phillip Phillips and Scotty McCreery were at this same point.
All in all, Season 14 is looking like a real possibility now, even if it's just as a farewell season. Given the ratings performance of American Idol XIII, that's kind of a miracle.
Via: The Idol Pad