Latest season of ‘American Idol’ trimmed by Fox
Fox TV’s lineup for the upcoming television season will include a high-profile Batman show called “Gotham” while the network scales back on airtime for its aging “American Idol.”The televised singing contest, now 13 years old and dragging on ratings for the network owned by 21st Century Fox, will start the season at two nights a week during the auditions phase.
But “it’s quite likely it’ll end up being a two-hour show on one night through most of its run,” Fox Broadcasting Entertainment Chairman Kevin Reilly said on a conference call on Monday.
The move will cut the hours of “Idol” to 37 from roughly 50 hours for the season. The show reigned for several years as the highest-rated program on U.S. television but has suffered a sharp audience decline, down 19 percent this season to 12.2 million viewers on average, according to Nielsen.
Overall, Fox ranks second among viewers aged 18 to 49, the group most prized by advertisers, and fourth in total viewers.
Fox, along with its broadcast rivals, is announcing its new shows in an annual spring presentation this week known as the upfronts, when networks try to persuade advertisers to buy billions of dollars worth of commercial time for the TV season that starts in the fall.
Fox’s “Gotham,” featuring Jada Pinkett Smith, follows a police officer in the world of Batman and charts the origins of the DC Comics superhero.
Last year, ABC brought a comic book movie franchise to TV with “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD,” a spin off from “The Avengers” movie.
Reuters
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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