Less than one year after it ran its final season, America’s first reality singing competition, “American Idol,” may be planning to begin creating stars anew in a reboot.
It was confirmed by sources this month that the Idol production company, FremantleMedia Limited, was in in talks with NBC to try to take on the show for a revival, though officials refuse to comment.
NBC has quite a few talent competitions, namely “The Voice” and “America’s Got Talent,” that air on their channel.
Other than legal difficulties, the main problem would be finding a spot to put Idol in the channel season schedule. The most likely choice would be to take The Voice down from two seasons a year to one and put Idol in its place.
There are also talks that it could instead be rebooted to a digital platform rather than TV. As of now, no confirmations on either decision have been made.
Even after its farewell season in 2016, rumors abounded about a possible comeback of the series. Creator Simon Fuller stated in 2015 that he was positive that Idol was coming back for a new generation of singers.
American Idol host, Ryan Seacrest, stated, “When you’ve got a franchise that has this kind of heritage and you’ve got a franchise that generates X amount of millions of people, if it sustains, does that mean it’s the end? I’m not so sure.” He even added a message of, “Goodnight America-for now,” after signing off on the final show.
American Idol, which premiered on Fox in 2002, quickly became one of the most watched shows in America, rating number one for a record eight consecutive years from the ’03-‘04 to ’10-’11 seasons.
During it’s run, Idol was most famous for it’s being able to turn out some famous chart-toppers, including Kelly Clarkson, who won Season One, Carrie Underwood, Jordan Sparks, Adam Lambert, Chris Daughtry and Clay Aiken.
Aside from sporting Seacrest as host, the original celebrity judges were Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson, all of whom quickly became the faces of the show.
However, the later seasons saw ratings fall after the original judges gradually left to pursue other ventures. Other judges were brought in such as Mariah Carey and Steven Tyler. The final judges for the last season were Harry Connick, Jr., Keith Urban and Jennifer Lopez. After 15 seasons, Fox decided to cut Idol due to the ratings dip.
Many considered American Idol to be one of the most influential shows in television history and responsible for producing some Billboard chart toppers.
Perhaps, we may yet again see who has the stuff to be the next American Idol.
Jacob Kusnerik
Intern