“American Idol” executive producer Nigel Lythgoe was recently asked by E! which of his two nominated shows should win the Emmy for Best Reality Competition Program on Sept. 18.
Lythgoe who also produces “So You Think You Can Dance” said “It’s a bit like deciding which child gets the sweets!” But to be fair, he went with is oldest “child.”
“I guess I would prefer American Idol because it’s been around for so long and it’s so deserving of an Emmy,” Lythgoe told E!
This marks the ninth time “American Idol” has been nominated for the Emmy, but it has never won.
Both show hosts are also nominated for the hosting Emmy. Lythgoe said if Idol wins the big Emmy, then he’d be OK with SYTYCD host Cat Deeley beating Idol host Ryan Seacrest to even the score.
Of course the interview with E! seemed to believe those two shows were only up against one another. Not true. They have some very tough competition. The other nominees are “Project Runway,” “Top Chef,” “The Amazing Race,” and “Dancing With The Stars.”
It’s official. Jennifer Lopez will return for American Idol 2012 this January along with the other two judges, Randy and Steven, along with host Ryan Seacrest.
Executive producer Nigel Lythgoe made the announcement this morning on Seacrest’s radio show and you can listen to the news below. Jump to 3m30s to hear the tidbit on JLo’s return from Nigel:
I am delighted to say that all three judges, along with the brilliant host of American Idol is back for the next season.
So what you do think? Is this good news for the new season or should American Idol have saved her $20 million paycheck for someone else?
Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer of American Idol, sat down with Zap2It for an interview on SYTYCD. Along the way they asked him about Idol’s voting system. While he sounded potentially interested in correcting an obviously faulty system I’m still not convinced that will ever happen.
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.”
And that last line right there is why I’ve said over and over that they’ll never change the voting system. It’s a useless, inflated metric, but they still do it anyway. They might as well be handing out Schrute Bucks for each vote.
So instead of making the voting meaningful and representative they’ll keep it as is for the momentary ego stroke of Ryan making that announcement. Yes, I think they care more about their egos than they do about the show’s legitimacy.
Did you get the feeling that Haley Reinhart took a little extra heat from the judges yet again last night after her performance of “Earth Song”? Well you’re not alone and you might even have some company in high places. American Idol executive producer Nigel Lythgoe went to Twitter last night with some authoritative praise for the targeted singer along with some big voting news.
Nigel sent out three Tweets last night with only two of those having any praise for the Top 4 and yes, both put Haley on the receiving end:
@dizzyfeet: “I, Who Have Nothing” was my favorite performance tonight.”
@dizzyfeet: “I personally feel Haley is the most improved contestant.”
So was Nigel trying to keep things a little more balanced with some support for Haley or would these Tweets have hit the interwaves regardless?
The other big news from Lythgoe was that this season hit its highest vote count yet. More than 70 million votes were registered across the phone lines, texts, and online voting. Pretty impressive, but the finale vote should be even higher.
I wonder which fans were moved to put in that many votes. Could it have been Reinhart’s? That just might spell the end of Lauren on American Idol 2011.
Last week’s “American Idol” Top 24 performance was pre-taped and everyone thought this week’s would be live, but that’s not so. Multiple sources, including Nigel Lythgoe himself, via Twitter, have confirmed it. It even sounds like Nigel is a little irritated with all the speculation the pre-taping is creating.
Nigel tweeted: “There is a load of crap being discussed all the contestants sing ‘live.’ The show has always been recorded to the West Coast. We are pre-taping for 2 weeks as we have a new Director & new judges. It has nothing to do with manipulation you morons.”
So there you have it. Sounds like the live performance show will be back next week. It doesn’t really matter to me if its pre-taped or not. As long as they don’t allow contestants to fix any flubs during their performances.
The Wednesday show (8-10 pm) will showcase the contestants favorite artists, so it sounds like song choice will be as broad as last week. Great. Wonderful. Zzzz.
Who do you think will go home this week? One of the wild cards? Or will America see something in them they didn’t see last week? I’m thinking it will be Ashton or Naima.
Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer of 
