
Another week and yet more drama behind the scenes of American Idol now that Randy Jackson has officially announced he won’t be returning next season shortly after fellow judge Mariah Carey dumped him as her manager. We reported last month that more judges would be getting dumped, and now we’ve heard that FOX is frantically figuring out a new game plan. This includes finally dumping Executive Producer Nigel Lithgoe and bringing on a new crew of judges for next season. The big thing they’re working on behind the scenes is figuring out what programming they can use to replace it in 2015.

Simon Cowell’s X Factor USA has turned into yet another bruise for the network who pumped in a lot of money into the show assuming it could match or even best those ratings. All the show has mainly done is gather news about constantly changing new judges and firing hosts. Demi Lovato is the only returning judge (aside from Simon) and Mario Lopez will be sole host as Khloe Kardashian was thankfully put out of her misery.
The big issue for FOX is that Idol is still pulling in over $800 million in ad revenue but having to continually pay out for judges with ratings continually dropping doesn’t bode well in the forseeable future. It’s ratings are down 22 percent this season and it’s continually making news for all the wrong reasons. Having repeats of The Big Bang Theory beat you along with Duck Dynasty doesn’t help.