SO LONG: Rocky ratings may push “Idol” to cut back to one show a week, combining elimination and singing shows on one night. The farewell — like Angie Miller’s (left) last week — has always been a stand-alone staple. (FOX via Getty Images)
Now that ABC has pared back its aging “Dancing With the Stars” to one night per week from two, industry insiders are speculating that the beleaguered Fox series “American Idol” will follow suit.
The season wrapping up this week has been a difficult one for “Idol,” with viewers abandoning it and the show slipping out of pop-culture discussion.
Age — the show has been on for 12 seasons — is certainly a factor, but format is another.
In remarks at the recent Fox upfront, a network pep rally for advertisers, Fox Entertainment Chairman Kevin Reilly blamed the show’s precipitous decline on its bloated and predictable format.
“The format will have fresh twists for next season,” Reilly promised. “But everything is, at this point, on the table.”
That includes the current judges, Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban, none of whom has signed for another season.
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“Idol’s” fourth judge, Randy Jackson, has already announced his departure, and US Weekly reported yesterday that Minaj will be leaving as well.
“They took a one-hour show and made it into two hours,” says Brad Adgate, senior vice president of research at Horizon Media. “There’s a lot of dead time. The results show used to be a half-hour.”
Adgate, though, shied away from predicting that Fox would eliminate the results show all together when it returns in January.
“It all depends on whether Fox has anything to put in its place that can produce more revenue than ‘American Idol,’ ” he says.”
He stressed that “Idol” is probably more concerned with stemming the exodus of viewers — 22 percent have left this season — than building up the ratings to those of its glory days.
“At the Fox upfront, they didn’t have any of the judges,” Adgate says. “They’re obviously moving in another direction.
“Another question is who they bring in as judges, whether they have chemistry with each other. There are all sorts of variables.”