‘American Idol’ season 13: Jimmy Iovine reportedly out; Randy Jackson in as mentor?

The more “American Idol” news that we hear for the upcoming season, the more we start to hilariously laugh about all of the “big changes” that were coming to the show this year. You have a judging panel that already includes two people (in Keith Urban and Jennifer Lopez) who have been judges on the show already; then, you also could now have an in-house mentor who was once a judge.

According to Deadline, Randy Jackson is likely to replace Jimmy Iovine on the show this year, which we personally chalk up as a major disappointment. Jimmy was our favorite critic on the show, mostly because he was an actual critic. Plus, this is a man who is extremely powerful in the music business, and actually works to make stars successful under the Interscope label.

As for the Dawg, Randy is at least a producer / manager who has worked with some former contestants before, including one of our favorites in Casey Abrams. He knows music very well, and maybe he’ll be reasonably effective in this role. The only advantage that we see him having here over Jimmy is that he’s probably going to be a little bit more available to them, whereas the Interscope head has a billion other things to do, and probably does not want to be associated with a show that has become a sinking ship.

Randy almost took the role of mentor last year, but ended up keeping his post on the judging panel instead thanks largely to negotiations falling through for “I Like It” singer Enrique Iglesias. (We bet that Enrique is rather thrilled that he made the decision not to sit next to Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj after the mess they went through.)

Some of the current third-judge candidates include Dr. Luke and maybe even Scooter Braun, who Lopez is campaigning for. Such people as Adam Lambert and Diddy were at least considered for the role at one point.

Photo: Fox