Entertainment

‘Idol’ online

(
)

There’s even more change in store for “American Idol.”

With less than seven weeks to go before “Idol” kicks off its 10th season on Jan. 19, rumors are beginning to leak out about how voting is being revamped in a big way.

For the first time in the competition show’s run, fans will be allowed to vote online, according to reports on “Idol” site votefortheworst.com. (Previously, votes were only collected via text message or by dialing in by phone.)

The site also indicates that 242 people received “golden tickets” to go on to the Hollywood round of auditions during the nationwide tryouts held earlier this year.

Anywhere from 40 to 50 of those “Idol” hopefuls will be highlighted during Hollywood week through Q&As and workshops with the contestants, which will give fans a better sense of who the contestants are. That will come in handy since viewers are expected to be responsible for voting for their favorite contestants through online ballots.

Viewer involvement at this stage of the competition represents a radical change from previous years, when judges alone decided who they wanted to advance to the semifinalist round.

The 12 contestants with the highest number of viewer votes will then move on to the finals. They’ll be joined by three additional “wild card” picks made by the judges, in conjunction with Interscope record label exec Jimmy Iovine.

This configuration seems to do away with the old Top 24 semifinalists format, going directly to the Top 15 finalists who are the heart of the competition.

As further evidence of the presence of online voting, a tipster at “Idol” gossip site ainow.org, points to a Season 10 contestant Twitter page — twitter.com/aicontestants — which indicates that “voting begins Thursday, February 24th at ATT.com/idol.”

Visitors to the Web site, however, are redirected to an AT&T Wireless site with a “page not found” error message, which could simply mean that the page is unavailable at the moment.

Fox had no comment.