‘American Idol XIII’: New Fox exec on moving away from Mariah Carey – Nicki Minaj drama

There is a new “American Idol” coming to Fox starting on Wednesday night, and you better get ready for this to be quite the different show than the one we saw in 2012. That show was a complete disaster most of the time. The judges were mostly just grimacing to keep from lashing out, the song choices were dated and boring, and while there were some quality contestants, the men were a non-factor and many of the ladies had a hard time overshadowing all of the garbage floating around without them. That’s not there fault, but it’s a season 9 sort of situation where they were just a victim of timing.

Obviously, the goal in bringing back Jennifer Lopez and instilling Harry Connick Jr. was to reduce the drama, and place the focus back where it needs to be. That is what Fox’s new “American Idol” / “X Factor” head David Hill said in the New York Times, which also included some hints that we will see a show much more devoid of the token bad contestants:

“There are so many positive qualities about this show, why would you want conflict there at all — question mark, question mark, question mark. The show can never be about the judges.”

Another interesting comment made in the story is that at this point in the show’s run, the goal is similar to that of “Survivor” and “The Bachelor”: Trying to keep the core fans happy. Hill and company know that it is not going to be particularly easy for them to suddenly recruit a ton of new viewers to a show that has been around the block forever, but they need to get back some of the viewers who bailed last season, and please everyone else who did sit through the fiasco hoping for something great on the other side.