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BECAUSE
when TV ratings dip, the suits always shuffle around the
women (see Today show, etc.), Fox announced Monday it is
adding another, younger, female judge to the country’s
most popular TV show, American Idol, when it
debuts its eighth season in January. Pop-lite song
writer/producer Kara DioGuardi, who is young enough to
be judge Paula Abdul’s kid sister, has been added to the
singing competition, which last season suffered a
decline in ratings, as did virtually every other program
on the primetime landscape.
Fox says
it is making the change for Paula’s sake. Seriously, it
did.
“For the
past seven seasons, Paula has had to endure the
experience of being the only woman at the judges’
table,” Mike Darnell, who oversees reality programming
at Fox, said in an announcement. “She’s been an island
of consideration and gentle criticism between Randy
(Jackson) and Simon (Cowell), offering her invaluable
expertise as a performer and No. 1 artist to the
thousands who have competed on American Idol.
With Kara by her side, Paula finally has some back-up
and now there is going to be a lot more ‘girl power’ on
the show.”
Wanna
bet she won’t actually be sitting by Paula’s side?
Another of the show’s plethora of exec producers, Cecile
Frot-Coutaz, noted they’ve seen from overseas versions
of the singing competition “that having a fourth judge
creates a dynamic that benefits both the contestants and
the viewers.”
Which is
odd, given the judges on the American version, also
including Jackson and Cowell, were given far less on-air
time for critiquing Idolettes last season. Particularly
Paula, who seemed far more, well, sane last season.
Maybe this move is intended to drive her back over the
edge, which made for the kind of train-wreck TV viewers
have come to expect on Idol.
Idol
exec producer Simon Fuller added that they are “turning
the heat up” on Idol this year and are “thrilled” to be
adding DioGuardi to the judges’ table because she is “a
smart, sassy lady” and one of the country’s “most
successful songwriters.” To back up this claim, Fox
notes she is “Grammy-nominated.” This is different from
“Grammy-winning.”
That
said, Fox notes her songs have been recorded by actual
Grammy-winning artists—not for her songs, however, it
would appear.
The
network lists a slew of them, including Kelly Clarkson,
Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Celine Dion, Faith
Hill, Carrie Underwood, Santana and Pink. Also releasing
DioGuardi songs are such pop-lite-ers as Britney Spears,
Avril Lavigne, Pussycat Dolls, Miley Cyrus, the Jonas
Brothers, Natasha Bedingfield, Jewel, Ashley Tisdale,
Katharine McPhee, Taylor Hicks, Bo Bice—not the Bo Bice?!—Clay
Aiken, Ashlee Simpson, Hilary Duff, Jessica Simpson,
Kylie Minogue, Enrique Iglesias and Nick Lachey. You may
know DioGuardi from her songs featured in Disney
Channel’s Camp Rock, or The Cheetah Girls 3,
or the Hannah Montana flick.
In an
“interview” somebody allegedly conducted with DioGuardi,
on Fox’s web site, she says she found out she was in the
running for the gig when “my agent called me and he
said, ‘you are on a short list to be the fourth judge on
American Idol,’ and I said ‘Are you calling for me or
did you dial the wrong number?’ They were, like, ‘No,
seriously, this is going on, this can happen,’ and I
was, like, ‘There is no way they are going to pick me.
Why wouldn’t they pick someone famous? Someone everyone
knows?’
“But you
know, I guess they saw something about me that they
thought was good, and they wanted to put somebody who
was from the industry on the show and so, I got the
job.” |
