‘American Idol’ season 13: Finding third judge could delay start time

If “American Idol” is really interested in signing Harry Connick Jr. to be the third member of their judging panel, then they better move quickly; otherwise, they are facing what could be best described a as a production nightmare.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, one of the major dilemmas that producers for the juggernaut has is that they only have a short amount of time to work out a new contract before the scheduled start of the new season. If they can’t pull it off, they face either having to go with a temporary judge, run the start of the audition with only two people on the panel, or wait on getting the contestants into the next stage of the process.

Apparently, producers really thought that Dr. Luke was going to be the third man to be on the panel after talks broke down with will.i.am, the last man that they thought was going to be juding. The record producer behind such hits as “California Gurls” and “Tik Tok” even wanted to be on the show so much that he reportedly offered Sony Music half of his $12 million salary to join. Unfortunately, the label was still not interested in helping a show that would draw competition to rival UMG, who is a key “American Idol” partner. (Sony has already let Dr. Luke work with a rival artist in Katy Perry, and they have little interest in doing so again right now.)

Our belief right now is that Connick’s deal will get done, and some fans of the show (but not all) will be happy.

Photo: Fox