American idol news

To remain interesting, the show American Idol constantly improved and changed, and generated spin-offs as well as changed format. Besides that, most avid viewers and fans of the show have the possibility to give their input to the show’s producers and ensure that the show improves and becomes even more popular. Some changes introduced in the past were the raise of the age barrier from 24 to 28, the removal of the Wildcard, which was very confusing for the audience anyway, semi finalists reduced to twelve boys and twelve girls and allowing the contestants the use of instruments, which was implemented in 2008. The audience liked the contestants playing an instrument, but the judges were most of the time critical of such occurrences.

There is many rumors and gossip going about claiming to have knowledge of changes to be implemented in the next season of American Idol, but official information is scarce to non-existent. Official American idol news spokesperson did declare that the auditions for season 8 will start in San Francisco, California, on July 18th, 2008. There are eight auditions scheduled, four in July, and four in August, one of which is going to be in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The changes to the show were not revealed, other than there is going to be less audition episodes and more half-hour result shows. Ryan Seacrest is returning as the host, the Judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul will return as well. The season will premiere in January 2009. The change in format seems to be based on results derived from the German spin-off of the American Idol, named “Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar”, where one of the judges is Dieter Bohlen, of the Modern Talking fame. Namely, the producers of the German show reduced the number of audition shows drastically and decided to use the additional footage obtained during the actual auditions to provide material to the auxiliary “behind the scenes” kind of show, transmitted weekly on the same channel. This seemed to raise the ratings of the extra show, which is something the parent company would like to accomplish as well. The American Idol Extra show went largely unnoticed, barely showing up in ratings, so this German accomplishment is taken as the model for future Extra shows.

Unfortunately there is not much else American idol news available for the fans of the show, but to watch other clones and wannabes of the show in awaiting of the show premiere in January next year, or watching re-runs and follow the current American Idol tour.