‘American Idol’ season 13: Meet the men who could pull show from an abyss

“American Idol” has now officially shored up some of its behind-the-scenes crew for season 13; and now, it’s all about finding out who are going to be the singers trying out this year, and who will be the judges.

In a statement today, the show’s new parent company in CORE Media Group announced that Jesse Ignjatovic and Evan Prager, otherwise known by the company alias Den of Thieves, have been brought on to executive producer the series along with Per Blankens. While the latter is going to work primarily on the overall course of the season, these two men are masters in live entertainment, having done the MTV Video Music Awards, the MTV Movie Awards, VH1 Divas, the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, and many other shows. Their purpose here will be to give a completely new sort of energy to a live show format that had a unique talent last year of putting people to sleep.

Who knows? Maybe these two will create such novel concepts as different song catalogs, bans on doing all ballads all of the time, or some sort of effort to make results shows worth watching for a full hour rather than just when “Community” is over.

Here is the statement from Core Media CEO Marc Graboff on the hire:

“To take an iconic show like American Idol to the next level, we wanted executive producers who really had a deep affection and respect for American pop culture … Jesse and Evan have an enormous amount of expertise in this arena and can do some very special things.”

Now that this is in place, it is now (shudder) all about the judges. There are countless horrible choices out there, but only a small handful of good ones. We don’t care if they’re huge stars or barely stars in the eyes of the public. Just get people who have an opinion and actually like each other … okay? Is that too much to ask at this point? If they are too egocentric to do a screen test, they are probably not right for the show to begin with.

Oh, and we’re still petitioning for one of the judges to be Adam Lambert. He’s opinionated, sympathetic, experienced, and there’s the little thing of he actually wants the job. What would you rather have, an interested party, or a mercenary out for a paycheck?

Photo: Fox