http://www.inquisitr.com/2079713/american-idol-will-be-cancelled-after-season-15-report/

A blog on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Idol ratings have gone down every season since Season 5, with the exception of Season 10. That season was the first without Simon Cowell and the first with Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. Now in Season 14, Idol brings in about 10 million viewers per week.

Recent Idol winners have had some difficulties getting traction in the music industry. Last year’s winner Caleb Johnson has already split with Interscope Records and self-funded a video shoot and his own tour. Season 11 winner Phillip Phillips recently sued his Idol-mandated management team and record company for not acting in his interest.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tv-upfronts-2015-whos-up-794634

Where It Stands: The top series on broadcast — Empire, which averaged a 7.1 rating in the key demo, just shy of Sunday Night Football — is sure to garner more upfront airtime than any of its new shows. Sources say Gary Newman and Dana Walden's first appearance as TV Group chairmen will bring news that the hip-hop drama has been given a heftier 18-episode order. "The heat is now on Empire to sustain its audience and launch something else," SMGx's Sam Armando says of the No. 4 network, which still suffered a dramatic 20 percent ratings drop courtesy of flop Utopia, more American Idol fatigue and Sleepy Hollow's sophomore slump. Idol will return with the same trio of judges, but insiders say the 15th season will be cut back and is expected to be the series' last.

And nothing of value was lost.

:woohoo: Been waiting 15 years for this.

http://time.com/3853612/american-idol-canceled-last-season-fox/

The news that Idol is ending next year (http://www.tvinsider.com/article/1717/american-idol-was-the-victim-of-its-own-success/) after 15 seasons isn't surprising, says Daniel D'Addario. But "there's still something surreal about the end of Idol, not least because at the show's peak, it seemed like it'd never come," he says. Despite its dominance, he adds, "Idol seemed to learn all the wrong lessons from its success, doubling down on the show's worst and most annoying aspects. The fighting between judges Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul, always ancillary to the main action of the show, amped up year after year."

We'll always have The Voice. I heard that one is better.

Simon Cowell leaving is a factor but not the primary factor. Simon had no problem letting you know that although you sound OK you're nothing special. The judges now seem to pick people that they find personally, entertaining, but not necessarily the audience. Unless they're the ones who are going to be buying the artists' albums, it should be the latter.

The Voice however, is a big problem. With its more evolved competition format, it makes Idol look pedestrian and boring, especially in the early audition rounds that, in the early seasons, were unpredictable and inspiring.

Unsuccessful winners (http://www.brobible.com/celebrities/article/ranking-careers-american-idol-winners-worst-best/) and contestants is another major factor. Last season may have been the final straw, even though this season's group is arguably much stronger. And the year before, they manipulated it for Candice Glover (http://brentmusicreviews.com/2013/06/07/five-reasons-why-candice-glover-might-have-an-uphill-battle/)to win and for all the men to go out first, and she had no star power. What has really ruined the show is the combination of too many predictable "White Guy with Guitar (http://msmagazine.com/blog/2011/04/04/american-idol-enough-with-the-white-guys-with-guitars/)" winners and a lack of success from both said winners and the few supremely talented also-rans of recent seasons -- Joshua Ledet, Jessica Sanchez, Haley Reinhart. Idol saturated the music industry with its talent, and the music industry no longer makes superstars out of Idol contestants, whether they deserve it or not.

It wasn't really a competition show anymore, it was a self promoting, variety show, karaoke hour.

I'm glad that this show is done...I hope The Simpsons are next...but they'll keep that show on until Cleveland wins a Championship!

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/idol-worship/6561254/nigel-lythgoe-american-idol-reaction

"I'm a huge fan of boxing," says Lythgoe, "and it's like when you're watching a real heavyweight boxer getting to the end of their career, and all these young whippersnappers are coming up: You've got to know when to retire." PLUS: Why Idol still matters (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/11/the-end-of-american-idol-how-fox-s-singing-phenomenon-changed-the-face-of-pop-culture.html), and Simon Cowell says (http://www.people.com/article/american-idol-canceled-simon-cowell-exclusive-statement) "We had a blast!"

Idol was a show I never got into. I tried in 2008, I think, but I just couldnt get into it. I think the show got long in the tooth just because it was oversaturated. I mean, at one time, wasnt the show on for 2 hrs.,3 times a week? Plus, like everything else, people just get sick of it. Also, there needed to be more Carrie Underwood's or Kelly Clarkson's that won it and it never happened.

http://tvline.com/2015/05/12/american-idol-cancelled-season-15-reasons/

Another problem, says Michael Slezak, is that producers forgot what made the show so great: "I'm not saying Fox's reality granddaddy needed to amp up the sob stories, but the near total absence the last few seasons of contestant interviews — and any genuine revelations about their lives and loves — has made it vastly easier to detach from the Idol process. Think back to the glory days of Season 8 — when Kris Allen, Adam Lambert, Allison Iraheta and their cohorts garnered the lion's share of water-cooler chatter, capturing our hearts just as much as our ears."

It should have ended years ago. And the fact that they didn't allow for older performers looking for their big break may have hurt them because these reality/competition shows tend to attract older viewers who may get tired of seeing young and pretty singers year after year. That might be why America's Got Talent does well, because they don't limit the age, appearance, or type of performer.

What caused the letdown of this show was the Season 2 finale, period!

I thought this show was canceled years ago.

But I Truly think the departure of simon cowell was the BIG factor that cause the show to jump the shark, let's face it without him the show ain't nothing.

It should have ended years ago. And the fact that they didn't allow for older performers looking for their big break may have hurt them because these reality/competition shows tend to attract older viewers who may get tired of seeing young and pretty singers year after year. That might be why America's Got Talent does well, because they don't limit the age, appearance, or type of performer.

Not to mention it got replaced by the voice.

I also think that the show was too long. I mentioned in a previous post about how it was on twice a week for 2 hrs. or whatever. Also, remember the season would start in Jan. and end in May. So figure, if your doing a 2 hour show for 2 days a week for 4 months, thats 64 hrs. for the whole season. Thats way to much.

So America's Got Talent won't be coming back?

But I Truly think the departure of simon cowell was the BIG factor that cause the show to jump the shark, let's face it without him the show ain't nothing.

totally agree. i think for some exceptions, many TV shows decline in quality the longer they stay on air. for me, idol should have called it quits after season 8.

and simon cowell's departure hurt the show and without him, the show just wasn't the same, nor as good as it was with him on it.

now, i'm hoping that 'so you think you can dance?' follows AI's suit. that show has been on for too long as well.

http://radiotvtalk.blog.ajc.com/2015/05/15/six-reasons-why-survivor-will-outlast-american-idol/

Survivor, which premiered 15 years ago this month, keeps surviving because of Jeff Probst, because it hasn't had to face competition from similar shows, and because it doesn't face the pressure to produce a star.

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/wimpy-white-dudes-with-guitars-ruined-american-idol-1703735120

American Idol is finally dead, to the delight of those who’ve always hated it, and the relief of those who used to love it. At the peak of its reign, the show was everything to everyone: the launching pad for the pop careers of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Taylor Hicks; the linchpin of the Fox prime-time schedule, where it once enjoyed a full 41-episode run; the means by which affable host Ryan Seacrest transformed himself into America’s Most Overemployed Man; and a chance for this nation’s most bankable monosyllabic brands (Coke, Ford) to get even bigger.

But the end has been long coming, and Monday’s announcement that the show’s upcoming 15th season would be its last was inevitable. Its sponsorship deal with Coke, once as vital to Idol’s imagery as the neon-script logo, ran dry last year. Ratings dropped increasingly week to week, lagging far behind even CBS’s fellow reality-show grandfather Survivor; the post-season touring version cut its lineup in half and booked smaller venues than the arenas of yore. Meanwhile, most recently minted winner Caleb Johnson split with Interscope, the official Idol label, saying that he was on the lookout for a team that would give him “actual support.”

Yes, the synergistic dream of huge ratings and legitimate pop stardom is finally dead, and the final season will serve as its lengthy funeral procession, which will likely include pre-YouTube viral sensation William Hung, a barking track called “Pants on the Ground,” and a glancing reference to Kara DioGuardi wearing a retaliatory bikini. Expect also to hear ad nauseam about the show’s few actual success stories, perhaps the only remaining edge it has on its competition.

Idol’s initial ascent dovetailed perfectly with the early-’00s pop hangover. By the time it premiered in the summer of 2002, *NSYNC had gone on hiatus, Britney Spears had entered the restaurant-mogul phase of her career, and Christina Aguilera had been talking to MTV about her “aggression that needs to come out in a not very precise or articulate way.” R&B-leaning pop ruled radio, with Ashanti’s whisper-soft “Foolish” topping the Hot 100 and Jennifer Lopez’s remix album leading the albums chart. Idol’s formula—a steeplechase of youthful singers from all across the land singing covers of pop staples to advice- and smarm-dispensing experts—smooshed together the game show and the variety show, two workhorse formats that had even more prime-time appeal when combined.

It’s tempting to argue that Kelly Clarkson, the show’s first winner and certainly the victor with the most sympathetic record-company woes, is the quintessential Idol candidate, and that the show should have self-destructed the moment her celebratory confetti fell. She had a great up-from-Texas backstory and even better pipes; putting the entire AI machinery behind her would have been an effective mic drop for the show’s mission to find the next global pop star. (“We did it, cheers, thanks a lot, goodbye.”) But even if it was all downhill from there, those first few seasons, when the show was still getting its sea legs while also enjoying its blockbuster status, are fun to revisit. The also-rans—Ryan Starr, Bo Bice, LaToya London—don’t have the social media-honed polish of modern-day contestants, and actual chemistry blossoms between the judges and the host. Mastermind Simon Cowell was surly, but he hadn’t crossed over to being tan and smug; Paula Abdul was dippy, but seemed to be having a good time; Randy Jackson was the knowing session man not yet reduced to a series of “dawg”-centric catchphrases. And Ryan Seacrest was, well, Ryan Seacrest, growing more self-assured with each post-elimination tear that seeped into his suit jackets.

But then we get to 2006, and season five’s strange, portentous case of Taylor Hicks.

My colleague Chris Molanphy has asserted that the Alabama-born soul singer’s win “broke” the show, thanks to its viewers electing to crown a king whose entire style was out of step with pop-radio trends. Hicks was the sort of blue-eyed soul singer you’d maybe see on MTV during Bruce Willis’s Bruno phase, albeit more talented and less famous. His post-victory week atop the Hot 100 in 2006 sticks out even more given that he was soon replaced at No. 1 by the likes of “Promiscuous” and “SexyBack.”

I don’t know if Hicks represented the first ding in the show’s armor; if anything, that came two years prior, when a spurned Jennifer Hudson showed us all how an Idol loss could be a stepping stone to even bigger things. Elton John’s grumbling about the show’s racist voting tendencies was a legitimate concern, however: Hicks’s win did show how Idol’s format (people sing on TV, people at home vote, America figures out this “democracy” thing once and for all) was not only imperfect, but could eventually serve as a liability, showing plainly the gap between the show’s graying demographics and the ever-younger pop market. That gap, too, would only increase as the years went on: Singers who got too modern or adventurous were dispatched earlier and earlier.

My breaking point with Idol came at the end of season eight. The show’s 2009 bench was astonishingly deep: the neo-Ne-Yo Anoop Desai, the sharp interpreter Megan Joy, the young spitfire Allison Iraheta. It even had its own villain in Danny Gokey, he of the scream and the smugness. Then there was Adam Lambert, the outré caterwauler whose reinventions of Johnny Cash and Led Zeppelin grabbed headlines, and who was clearly the best performer overall since Jennifer Hudson way back in season three. He lost to Kris Allen, an aw-shucks crooner whose undeniable talent and humble charm made him extremely endearing, and an obvious victor during any other year. But Lambert was the guy to make the cover of Rolling Stone post-finale, because he seemed like a rock star, like the apotheosis of the Idol dream: He went from dude with emo hair to soul singer with a political edge over the course of his season, stopping along the way to give EDM DJs sampling ideas. Allen and Lambert are both still making music, of course, but you can probably guess which one is working with Queen and Max Martin.

Watching Idol flail toward relevance in the post-Lambert years was painful at times, like being trapped inside the sad middle part of a Behind the Music episode with no comeback arc in sight. A confused Ellen DeGeneres showed up to replace Abdul as a judge and bailed almost immediately. Simon Cowell departed for the greener pastures of The X Factor, which birthed the pugilistic me-first pop of Fifth Harmony before shrinking back across the Atlantic. Meanwhile, The Voice launched on NBC, hogging all the buzz with its big-name judges and fancy swivel chairs; Idol responded by hiring even more famous people—Steven Tyler! Nicki Minaj! Mariah Carey!—to sit behind its Coke cups and opine. But upgrading the voters was a much tougher job.

Indeed, recent seasons of Idol were most defined by viewers hellbent on keeping a particular, and somewhat archaic, strand of pop alive: those who would, through hell or bad reception, unfailingly text their support for the most Jason Mrazian of the bunch, which led to Lee DeWyze’s unfortunate season-nine victory and a string of white dudes vanquishing any women or R&B-leaning males who dared reach the Top 4; last night’s elimination of Jax, the Jersey girl who sang Paramore and Evanescence before being sent home, set up yet another mano a mano finale. To their credit, those dudes were at times mystified by their own success, but their worthier foes were unfairly vanquished all the same. (Crystal Bowersox, your earth-mother stylings and ability to stay on pitch will not be forgotten.) These singers got their very own acronym from Idol watchers—WGWGs, for White Guys With Guitars—and made the prospect of Another R&B Song Getting Covered In A Gimmicky, Overly Caucasian, YouTube-y Sorta Way grimmer and more inevitable by the week.

Eventually, the producers decided to all but put the fix in for a female winner, and what better time to do it than after the guaranteed-from-drop victory of the blithe WGWG apotheosis Philip Phillips; despite season 12 victor Candice Glover’s formidable pipes and talent for pop reinvention, her 2013 win was overshadowed by the judging panel’s more boldfaced names sniping at each other and undermined by new associated label Interscope’s indifferent marketing.

That Glover couldn’t become a pop star, though, was hardly her fault, or her label’s; the top-down type of influence once wielded by American Idol has waned as the pop market has become completely upended. Once you reach music’s A-minus list—just below your Beyoncés and your Rihannas, to the level of artists whose attempts to coin cute fan-base names don’t quite catch—brand names matter way less, particularly to harried, overstimulated listeners. A “funny” viral-video fluke like Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” or Psy’s “Gangnam Style” is worth far more than a spot on some TV show. Just look at The Voice, which for all the breathless fans and NBC-saving ratings has yet to market one of its contestants successfully; the already-famous judges are getting way more out of it than the singers themselves. Idol can still manage a must-see performance occasionally, but those blips are clawing for attention in a much bigger, much more chaotic landscape.

This shrinking of American Idol was inevitable; the pop market that spawned it needed it less and less, and the TV landscape it helped shape has since mutated uncontrollably. With this cancellation announcement, it can ride off into the sunset with at least a little bit of dignity left. At the very least, we’ll always have this.

That show is not one of my favorites. I won't miss it at all.

I think Clay Aiken and Kimberley Locke should both return for American Idol's final season.

This time Kimberley will be the American Idol series finale runner-up and Clay Aiken will be the American Idol series finale winner, without a doubt. There still a chance that could happen for these two to return.

The final season of American Idol will be four weeks shorter than the previous season. It is an indication that the last American Idol winner will be crowned in April. The decision to reduce the final season of AI was made by the FOX Network.

Trish Kenane, president of entertainment programming for FremantleMedia North America, spoke about AI having less episodes, stating, quote: “The storytelling works better in [fewer] weeks. Idol was so successful [that the season] got too extended too much. There are only so many hours that viewers will devote to watching these shows, so if it is shorter this year, it will be a good thing.”

Ms. Kenane also spoke about the potential for a revival of American Idol via other outlets like Hulu or Netflix because, “everybody knows American Idol”.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter. (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/american-idol-will-cut-final-847691)

It should have these for the final season:

- Few winners.
- Many runner-ups and third-placers needing second chances.

I remember when American Idol first came out Mom and I saw a episode of it once and it was confusing for us and Mom disliked American Idol so much that we switched the channel to another show and then my aunt got addicted to American Idol as well and I could never understand how in the world American Idol became so popular in TV. I think from the moment Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol FOX knew that they had a huge hit show on their hands and American Idol had known that with Kelly Clarkson as the winner they had plans to make her a huge success in music and along with Justin Guarini {Who got second place** they got to star in the movie From Justin To Kelly as well but even today you don't hear much about Justin Guarini since he released his lone debut self-titled album. But I think that when American Idol began it's second season it all went downhill when Ruben Studdard became the winner of Season 2 that American Idol started focusing on R&B singers and when Clay Aiken became the American Idol Season 2 Runner-Up he became a huge star and has released lots of albums. Also during American Idol's Second Season American Idol became not just a show but a huge marketing brand and during this time American Idol was seen on anything from kids clothing to Nintendo games computer games cell phones Barbie dolls birthday party supplies birthday cakes and also JCPenney had released American Idol perfume as well and also American Idol launched a deal with McDonalds to market American Idol Happy Meals as well and made American Idol a big success. But I can predict that FOX will bring back American Idol with a spin-off show called American Idol Country that will be the same thing but to search for the next country music superstar and there will be many shows that will be successful as American Idol in the near future indeed
Bestie

It was one of a kind.

The Death of 'American Idol' May Be the Best Thing That Ever Happened to the Fox Network (http://www.pajiba.com/trade_news/the-fox-networks-phenomenal-new-20162017-tv-series.php)

I'll take The Voice