American Idol revival: NBC, Fox reportedly in pursuit
According to a new report coming in now via TMZ, the show’s original network is getting involved in what appears to be a bidding war with NBC over the rights to get it back on the air. The decision, per the report, could come over the next week. It’s pretty obvious as to why the networks would be fighting to get the show back — while the ratings for the final season weren’t through the roof, they were far and away better than what we’re seeing from much of primetime this season. It’s make sense for either network to have it.
The report mentions something that we’ve already discussed here at the site a little bit, back before Fox was reportedly in the running — NBC wants to trim down The Voice to one cycle a year. They may be worried about there being too many singing shows on the market, and that hurting their overall brand. They also claim that Adam Levine is interested in going down to doing only one cycle of the show a year. We cannot verify that, but we’d understand if NBC wanted to only do the show with its marquee coaches — which are, at the moment, Adam and Blake Shelton.
In some ways, we do miss American Idol. There’s no debating in our mind that The Voice is probably the more entertaining version of the show through the auditions, but the lack of definite criticism by the coaches is frustrating and the middle rounds are excruciating and dull. Meanwhile, the lack of genuine stars to come out of The Voice invalidates part of its key purpose. You cannot claim that you’re finding a superstar any more than you are just getting some people who will be moderately famous for a year at best. Cassadee Pope remains the only winner who we’d say is close to a star, while Danielle Bradbery and RaeLynn (who didn’t win, but made it fairly far) are at least players within the country-music world.
Ultimately, we’ll see what happens with all of this, but it does all remain fairly fascinating to discuss given that one year ago, it looked like American Idol was trotting off into the sunset.
Who do you think should get the American Idol revival, and should the show come back at all? Share some of your thoughts on the subject now in the comments! (Photo: Fox.)