But it is two others, the music executive Jimmy Iovine and the television producer Nigel Lythgoe, who will do the most to determine the future of America’s most-watched reality show.
With Simon Cowell and his smugness gone, the two men are trying to make “Idol” more true to its former motto, “The Search for a Superstar.” After several years of contests that were panned by critics and many viewers, the producers are promising more input from professional music producers, more entertaining performances by contestants and fewer distractions from surprise guests. “We have got to go back to creating an American idol,” said Mr. Lythgoe, who helped create “Idol” and returned to it last fall after two years away.
Last year “Idol” brought an average of about 24 million viewers to Fox twice a week. That’s a huge audience, but it has been slowly diminishing for several years, casting some doubt on the show’s sustainability over the long term. The changes this season will either stop the erosion, slow it — or speed it up.
“This is the first top-to-bottom reboot that they’ve had,” said Richard Rushfield, the author of “American Idol: The Untold Story” and a former writer for The Los Angeles Times. It is needed, he said, to put more emphasis on musical talent, since the last hugely successful singer produced by “Idol” was Chris Daughtry, five years ago — and Mr. Daughtry was a runner-up. “If they can create another Kelly Clarkson that sells millions and millions of albums right away, they’ll have a huge fresh wind in their sails,” Mr. Rushfield said. A central part of the remodeling is Mr. Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, an arm of Universal, which is replacing Sony as the music label that markets and distributes albums from “Idol” winners and runners-up. For Mr. Iovine, “Idol” is adding a new role on the show — “in-house mentor” or coach — for the entirety of the season. Mr. Lythgoe, who will remain off camera, calls him the “music czar.”
Mr. Iovine said at a news conference in early January: “The kids can’t just be told, ‘O.K., sing better.’ Someone has to work with them every week on performance, on style, and also make the songs they do have some kind of originality as well.”
To do that, Mr. Iovine intends to bring in producers like Timbaland to coach the contestants two or three days a week. “They’re going to be bringing them along the same way they bring any artist that signs with Interscope along every week,” Mr. Iovine said. “I think you’re going to see a remarkable difference from week to week; much bigger than it was in the previous shows and previous airings.”
The brunt of the changes won’t be noticed until after the first month of telecasts, which feature auditions in different parts of the country. The contestants who make it through the Hollywood round of auditions will perform Beatles songs in a new setting for the show, Las Vegas, on Feb. 23; the next night, back in Hollywood, the judges will name 20 semifinalists, and then the public will begin voting. Fox has shifted “Idol” to Wednesday and Thursday nights this season, from Tuesday and Wednesday in prior seasons, somewhat complicating the ratings comparisons.
The show is mostly casting away the guest judges and mentors that it featured in previous years. It is also eliminating some of the theme weeks that the producers came to dislike.
“We’re no longer going to get the country singer to sing rock, and the rock singer to sing folk,” Mr. Lythgoe said. “They are now going to stay with what they believe and what Jimmy believes is their genre that they need to work in.”
“Idol” has also reportedly signed up a new music director, Ray Chew, replacing Rickey Minor, who exited last year.
All the talk about the music plays down — deliberately, it seems — the three judges who weigh in on every episode. There has been no visible attempt to cast someone just like Mr. Cowell, or, for that matter, copies of Ellen DeGeneres or Kara DioGuardi, who also departed after Season 9. Mr. Cowell is preparing another singing competition for Fox, “The X Factor,” which will start in the fall. Randy Jackson remains a judge, and Ryan Seacrest remains the host. Mr. Rushfield said the former judge panels had become “outsized,” detracting from the aspiring stars onstage. He said he expected that this year the panel would “consume a lot less oxygen, in terms of the drama it creates.”
Ms. Lopez noted that unlike Mr. Cowell, she and Mr. Tyler are singers and performers. Mr. Tyler, the frontman for Aerosmith, is working on another album for Sony now.
“We’re artists,” Ms. Lopez said. “We’ve been up there. We’ve auditioned. We’ve been through the ranks.”
