ABC now wants American Idol season 16 revival
According to TMZ, the Alphabet Network is now gearing up to place a bid to get the franchise on their network, presumably for a start in March 2018. Talks don’t appear serious yet, and there are some major hurdles that will need to be overcome. For one, there is convincing the two owners of the show in Fremantle and Core Media Group to come together. There was such contention between the two production houses that it caused the deals over at NBC and Fox to die earlier this spring. Why would anything be different now?
There is also an issue here in trying to find a way to get the show back in a form that viewers recognize. Because of his new gig hosting Live! with Kelly Ripa, Ryan Seacrest is unlikely to come back as a host. That is made especially true because of insistence that the show remain in Los Angeles, keeping all of that Hollywood spirit and the dream alive.
If a bidding war does begin, don’t be surprised if some of the other networks get dragged back into this once more.
We said back when the original deal with Fox / NBC fell through that the odds were fairly high it could come back even still. Why? Money talks, and eventually there would be something offered that convinced Fremantle and Core Media Group to put aside whatever issues they have and come together to produce the best show possible. You have to remember that this is still an attractive property — even in its final season, it was generating far better numbers than the majority of the other shows on TV in the adults 18-49 demographic. One of the biggest issues was the on-screen talent eating up the majority of the income. Seacrest commanded a rather large salary, as did the three judges. If you bring it back, you could do so with either music industry professionals or artists that won’t be looking to make over $10 million a year sitting around and evaluating talent. Remember that for the first season of American Idol, Paula Abdul was the only big star they had.
Do you think that this American Idol season 16 revival could work at Fox? Share in the comments below now!
Once there is some further information, rest assured that we’ll provide it for you now over at the link here. (Photo: Fox.)