Nigel Lythgoe Wants to Change American Idol Voting System

Nigel Lythgoe met with advertisers in New York City today, and Zap2it.com caught up with him to discuss American Idol and the current season of So You Think You Think You Can Dance which has its Season finale Thursday August 11.

Nigel wants to change the Idol voting system to “one device, one vote”–whatever that means.  This isn’t the first time Nigel has mentioned changing the voting. He’s also expressed an interest in allowing the judges more control over who gets sent home.   If Nigel is looking to get more control over the process, I think he’ll have better luck giving the judges more power.  I can’t see Idol limiting the voting, unless AT&T stopped sponsoring the show.  There’s too much money to be made with unlimited voting.

“They were given the opportunity to grow in the audition room, ” he says. “That has not happened before.”

“I’m extremely happy with the success we had this season, ” he says. “It was a season of transition, a season where we lost our two No. 1 stars. I’m thrilled, delighted. I always said it’s about the talent. This year it was about the talent.”

For next season, Lythgoe’s mulling over the voting process. “I am going to be interested in listening to one device, one vote, each week, ” he says. “Voting will be discussed. It is unique to ‘Idol, ‘ the way we have it now.”

If it did change, “we would never be able to boast again 72 million votes in a night.”

On the current season of SYTYCD, Nigel says, “We took more not-formally-trained dancers, more street dancers, ” he says. “I wanted to see something else. I was literally shocked where street went this year.” Nigel, always yammering on about street dancers like he just discovered them. Heh.

About mj santilli 34841 Articles
Founder and editor of mjsbigblog.com, home of the awesomest fan community on the net. I love cheesy singing shows of all kinds, whether reality or scripted. I adore American Idol, but also love The Voice, Glee, X Factor and more!