‘American Idol’ season 13: Results show to only be half-hour; ‘Surviving Jack’ lands primo slot

While we have yet to see what the new finished product looks like on “American Idol,” we can at least give the new producing team credit for one thing: Actually listening to the complaints that some of the fans have had about the past decade-plus of the show.

Fox announced today that this year, the live results shows are going to be shortened down to a half-hour, which means there is no longer a need to sit around and suffer through some ridiculous pre-packaged segment, Ryan Seacrest drawing things out, or hopefully more silly Ford Music Videos that try to make a normal car out to be the equivalent of a economical flying Audi. You can say that this is the result of falling ratings, but let’s be honest: It’s far cheaper to just have an hour-long results show than creating an entirely new program to go after it.

While there is no official premiere date just yet as to when this results show change will happen, expect it to be around early March. This results show is also going to bleed into “Surviving Jack,” the new 30-minute comedy headlined by Chris Meloni formerly of “Law & Order: SVU.” This news alone is good for Fox’s comedy block on Tuesdays, especially the brilliant “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” as it hopes to be given a full season soon. It is already being given a spot following the upcoming Super Bowl, so they clearly believe in it’s potential.

“American Idol” has already seen the ratings for “The X Factor” plummet this year, and “Dancing with the Stars” completely scrapped its results show altogether. This is actually our favorite idea in that we do still think that a results show matters since it gives time for people to vote, and enough of a presence that fans really get involved in the process. We wish that “So You Think You Can Dance” would come back and do things with a similar format.

So far, buzz for “American Idol XIII” (as they are technically calling it) has been pretty strong, at least in between claims that the judges get along better than ever and the contestant pool is proving to still be pretty strong. Fox has also released a new promo, and we’re pleased to see that voters decided to give the show the slogan of “The Search for a Superstar.” This just seems to be the one thing that almost everyone remembers the show by these days.

“American Idol” will return to the air starting on Wednesday, January 15 on Fox.