It’s FOX day at the Television Critics Association tour taking place in Beverly Hills, and although American Idol and Glee won’t premiere until mid-season, both shows came up as topics of conversation during this morning’s executive session.
“American Idol” is “aging gracefully,” said Fox Networks Group chairman and CEO Peter Rice, but needs to do a better job finding contestants.
“We haven’t found in the last two years a group of kids who’ve captured the imagination of the public,” he said.
Rice feels that Idol still performs well for the network, but not as well as it used to when it helped FOX rule the ratings in the key 18-49 demo.
“We’ve certainly played musical chairs in the last few years with the judges,” he said, “We felt very good about the production of the show this year.”
In fact, the behind the scenes team is the same, Rice revealed. “We’re excited about the new season.”
Rice noted that between American Idol, The Voice and Rising Star, the competition for singing shows is intense. When one reporter asked if he was worried about running out of kids, Rice answered, “We’re always making more.”
FOX loves So You Think You Can Dance, but that does not mean an automatic renewal for a 12th season. The competition veteran hit an all time low rating this week, earning only a 1.0 rating and 3.63 million viewers
“It’s a show that we love,” said Rice, “We’ll get to the end of the year and see where we stand. I hope it comes back.” So do we!
And as far as Glee is concerned. It will end it’s 6 season run, with the final season airing only 13 episodes beginning sometime mid-season, a decision that was made back in May.
“I think Glee is one of the great shows in television history,” Rice said, “It burned so hot and so fast,”
“It touched so many hearts and brought social issues to the floor. It’s been on for over 100 episodes now and six seasons, and we want it to go out in a way that celebrates it.”
