American Idol 2015 has been promised to us by FOX and the Season 14 auditions have been scheduled, but when it returns we may be seeing less of our favorite singing show.
According to Deadline, American Idol may be facing less air time on FOX for its fourteenth season:
Discussions are still under way but I hear we will likely see a mix of one show per week and two editions, which had been the case since the show’s start in 2002. While the air pattern will likely change next season, the stars of American Idol are expected to stay the same.
Perhaps we could be getting one show per week in the early stages of American Idol 2015 for auditions and high level eliminations, then as the season works its way down to live shows it could return to two episodes a week. Or maybe FOX will decide to stick it out with one show per week from start to finish. I really think that’d kill the hype and excitement of results night and surely they can find 30 mins in there to air a results show, but we’ll have to wait and see.
FOX will likely have more details to share soon as they’ll be holding more press releases today for next year’s line-up.
What do you think of this possible change? We’ve been hearing about this possibility for awhile, so it’s not a big surprise, but would definitely change the way the season feels. Could less be more for American Idol in its 14th season?
Update: Per MJsBigBlog, FOX has confirmed that yes, American Idol will be reduced in its hours starting next season. Interestingly the one episode vs two episodes a week shift will be in reverse of what I thought they might do.
Instead of starting one episode a week for auditions they’ll do two shows a night in that phase and then work down to one night a week for performances and results. We’ll just have to wait and see how they combine those two though it’s obviously been done before and made to work.
The format change will drop the total order for American Idol 2015 down to 37 hours from its current run of over 50 hours. Well, there is a lot of fluff!
As for the judges, while FOX won’t confirm anything until contracts are worked out it sounded very likely that all judges would be back next season.
FOX sounds confident that the series will be around for awhile and this isn’t necessarily a death-spiral of cuts until it’s done and gone.