American Idol Television Program

"American Idol" ended its eighth season last week. So what will fans do with all this newfound free time? Why, delve into another "Idol" voting controversy, of course. Published reports have raised questions on whether AT&T, a program sponsor, may have violated "Idol" voting rules at two pre-finale parties thrown for Kris Allen, the Arkansas crooner crowned winner last Wednesday.

Hubris. Whoever remains to sing and, eventually, go on the summer tour after Wednesday's elimination round on "American Idol" should spend some time pondering that very old but suddenly relevant term. Though this season's remaining bunch is hardly overconfident, the ridiculous song choices and emotionally tone-deaf performances Tuesday night showed a lack of self-awareness that translated into fatal overreaching. In the ancient world, hubris was the sin a blindly arrogant hero might commit before the gods -- dragging around the corpse of somebody he'd vanquished, for example, or desecrating a temple out of sheer carelessness.

It's been a week of breakups for "American Idol" creator Simon Fuller. First, Simon Cowell announced he was leaving his job as judge on the hit Fox show. Now Fuller is parting ways with CKX Inc., which owns 19 Entertainment, producer of "American Idol" and Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance." Fuller's exit to start his own entertainment production company comes just days after CKX Chief Executive Robert F.X. Sillerman told The Times that he did not think Fuller's skills were suited to the executive suite.

For the second time in two weeks, the previously untouchable "American Idol" television show on Fox was beaten by NBC's Olympic coverage Thursday night. That coverage included Americans Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane going 1-2 in a Nordic combined event, the men's aerials and, most important, the long program for the ladies in figure skating. And the network should have strong ratings Sunday, now that the U.S. hockey team has advanced to the gold-medal game, which will be shown live in all time zones on NBC. The U.S. will play Canada, which beat Slovakia, 3-2, in a semifinal Friday night.

In an "American Idol" first, an eliminated contestant has been given a second chance to compete. On Wednesday night, the show's judges vetoed the viewers' decision to drop Matt Giraud and pulled him, the week's lowest vote-getter, back into the competition. Giraud, a 23-year-old piano player from Kalamazoo, Mich., looked nervous when he started up his sing-for-your-life redo of Bryan Adams' "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" from the film "Don Juan DeMarco."

I never thought I would have occasion to feel sorry for Neil Diamond, but "American Idol" always seems to introduce me to new and uninvited emotions. Tuesday's show, devoted to the songbook of the estimable Tin Pan Alley rocker, did him a great injustice -- and it didn't do much for the tremulous Top Five Idols, either. Maybe they're still processing the slaying of Carly last week, or perhaps they'd gotten into whatever made Paula render judgment on Jason Castro's second song before he sang it -- but with one exception, the contenders seemed a little, well, glazed.

For the second time in two weeks, the previously untouchable "American Idol" television show on Fox was beaten by NBC's Olympic coverage Thursday night. That coverage included Americans Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane going 1-2 in a Nordic combined event, the men's aerials and, most important, the long program for the ladies in figure skating. And the network should have strong ratings Sunday, now that the U.S. hockey team has advanced to the gold-medal game, which will be shown live in all time zones on NBC. The U.S. will play Canada, which beat Slovakia, 3-2, in a semifinal Friday night.

The two-part finale of hit series "American Idol," which begins tonight, is the most talked-about thing in television right now, partly because this season's contenders, Adam Lambert and Kris Allen, are exciting performers. But it's also because they have done something unexpected: Their unlikely friendship has presented America with a new vision of itself, beyond the deepest divisions of the culture wars.

The first talent auditions for the ninth season of the Fox juggernaut "American Idol" are still two weeks away, but there is already a beauty contest going on behind the scenes. Negotiations on a new contract for Simon Cowell, the show's linchpin, chief prosecutor and animating force, are progressing quickly and could be concluded as early as this week.

Here we are, down to the top 12 of "American Idol" Season 7, and after a shaky Season 6, I'm far from alone in saying with a straight face that this may prove to be the best of all "Idol" seasons. Even the early departures of widely enjoyed candidates Danny Noriega, Kady Malloy and Asia'h Epperson last week seemed proof of the quality of this season.

Lindsey Vonn pulled off what many have tried but few have achieved. No, we're not talking about overcoming a shin injury and winning a gold medal in downhill skiing. We mean beating Simon Cowell. On Wednesday, NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, pulled off the nearly unheard-of feat of toppling Fox's "American Idol" in the ratings. Powered by Vonn's dramatic victory on the slopes that day, the games averaged 30.1 million total viewers during the 9-10 p.m. hour, pushing Fox's singing contest down to an unusually low 18.4 million, according to the Nielsen Co. A perfect six-year winning streak for "Idol" was demolished along the way. And it could happen again this week, when two-hour "Idols" on Tuesday and Wednesday devoted to the top 24 contestants square off against coverage of women's figure skating on NBC, traditionally among the most-popular Olympic events.

And then there was one. Next season, barring any last-minute twists and turns, Randy Jackson will be the only original "American Idol" judge left sitting. Paula Abdul is now gone and in a blockbuster development earlier this month, Simon Cowell announced he was leaving the nation's most popular, if aging, television series to start his own show, "The X Factor." "Idol" made Jackson a household name and the former session bassist turned pop producer leveraged his fame to expand his brand beyond the hit show.

It's been a week of breakups for "American Idol" creator Simon Fuller. First, Simon Cowell announced he was leaving his job as judge on the hit Fox show. Now Fuller is parting ways with CKX Inc., which owns 19 Entertainment, producer of "American Idol" and Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance." Fuller's exit to start his own entertainment production company comes just days after CKX Chief Executive Robert F.X. Sillerman told The Times that he did not think Fuller's skills were suited to the executive suite.

When a reporter suggested Monday that 60% of "American Idol" viewers show up just to see Simon Cowell, the man himself set the record straight. "I think you'll find it was slightly higher than that," Cowell joked to reporters at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena. The sharp-tongued British impresario made a surprise appearance at Fox's executive session Monday to confirm that this will be his last season on the smash singing competition before bringing his similarly themed "The X Factor" to the network in fall 2011.

To add Ellen or not to add Ellen, that was the question -- but only for a quick minute. The sudden departure of Paula Abdul from her "American Idol" judging job on Aug. 4, three days before auditions were beginning, left Fox, FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment scrambling for a replacement. As they frenetically booked guest judges for auditions in different cities, executives simultaneously focused on the long-term problem of finding someone to permanently fill Abdul's shoes.

Now that Paula Abdul has voted herself off of Fox's "American Idol" after eight years as a judge on the hit talent show, the question is whether there will be a recount or if she will seek office somewhere else. With auditions for the ninth season of "American Idol" starting Friday in Denver, the odds of Abdul getting one of the show's judges' patented saves from the network seem long but not impossible.

In an enormous empty parking lot under a full moon at 4 o'clock in the morning, a pretty blond is practicing a few dance steps in front of a bank of cruddy blue portajohns that look like a panel of inscrutable judges. This can only mean one thing: "American Idol" has returned to Los Angeles.

Networks have long been ushering reality show castoffs onto morning shows and otherwise deploying news divisions to promote in-house product, but on Wednesday night, in the heat of the May sweeps, some kind of dam seemed to burst. ABC, in a twist on the typical embrace, used its news division to go after the hottest property in Fox's entertainment division, airing a so-puffed-up-it-was-hilarious expose of the alleged affair between "American Idol" judge Paula Abdul and ex-contestant Corey Clark.

The news that Paula Abdul has apparently chosen to leave "American Idol" rather than accept a salary below her asking price forces the question reality television has been dancing around for years now: What is a reliable train wreck actually worth? Abdul may have been chosen as one of "American Idol's" original judges because of her singing career -- "I've been where you are" is her default position with contestants -- but what she actually brought to the show was, well, insanity.

Paula Abdul, who has been in tense negotiations with Fox for a new deal to remain a judge on "American Idol," wrote on Twitter on Tuesday night that she is leaving the show. "I'll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day 1 become an international phenomenon." Abdul's contract expired after the last season, its eighth, ended in May.