“American Idol,” helping feed the media beast (which includes me), held a print phone press conference today with executive producer Nigel Lythgoe (You might recognize him as a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance”). He’s usually quite candid and informative and he didn’t disappoint. I asked him why the show chose to add an extra audition episode and reduce the Hollywood portion effectively to one episode instead of two........
He also explained how he’d like to bring back some former “Idol” contestants. Pick 10 songs from the open songwriting contest and have those ex-finalists come in and sing particular songs. Then have America vote for their favorites. He mentioned how great it would be see Constantine or Ace or Tamyra back on primetime TV that way. It’d be a way for Fox to get an extra hour of “Idol”-juiced revenues and it would be kind of cool to boot for us “Idol” addicts.
As for the Courtney Love rumors, he said he was amused that she was latching on to the show that way. (She had claimed she had heard from Nigel, inquiring about her becoming a guest judge. She later said she might have been “punk’d.”). And he denied that she was called to guest on a Nirvana themed Idol show. “Rubbish,” he said, noting that it would be ridiculous to see a Kellie Pickler sing a Nirvana song, for instance.
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