Producers of “American Idol” are hoping the veteran Fox singing competition show’s upcoming season — premiering Wednesday at 8 p.m. (Ch. 5) — will be “Lucky 13.”
But the franchise is going to need more than luck to reverse its fortunes after its Season 12 🌠finale drew 14.3 million viewers, the lowest in its run and down more than 30 percent from the prior year.
To kickstart the aging franchise, Fox has brought in Swedish “Idol” producer Per Blankens (pronounced “pear”) to replace longtime producers Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick. His first order of business? Finding a judges’ panel with less drama than the catfighting Mariah Carey and Nicki ꦚMinaj brought to 2013’s quartet.
“Who would have known that the panel wouldn’t really work out that looked so good on paper,” Blankens tells The Post, noting the long hours the judges must endure during the audition rounds. “That’s why we made sure we were not just going to 🥃take any name. We wꩵanted to make sure this was a trio that would like each other’s company. ”
He even had the new judging trio of returning Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez (back after aꦺ one-season hiatus) and newcomer Harry Connick Jr., have dinner togethe♛r before they went on the audition tour and says the resulting chemistry has been “great.”
As for format changes, Blankens and team are going fಞor small tweaks rather than a full-scale overhaul to combat viewer fatigue. For one, contestants earning a trip to the Hollywood rounds will receive an actual golden ticket from the judges — something Blankens borrowed from Swedish “Idol.”
“It gives us TV producers one more moment of televisioཧn where the kids approach the bench and get to take it from their hand,” he says.
There’s the addition of “The Chamber,” a closet-sized space that serves as the contestants’ last stop before meeting the judges, with a camera to capture their𒁃 final preparations. Home stories will be cut down and saved for later in the season.
“Every time you leave the audition room and go to somebody’s house, the show just stops, if you will,” Blankens says. “The home stories are still there but they’re very short. We’re saving a lot of mate🎃rial that we did film in people’s homes for later in the process when you can relate to that person . . . then it becomes more interesting [to see] their father or mother or brother or where they live.”
The middle rounds after Hollywood and before the live shows have also been shortened to a single three-show week called “Rush Week” to narrow down the top 30 to the fina♒l 13. And the live shows will feature new music themes “so that the kids can relate to the music,” Blankens says.
More time has also been built into the schedule behind the scenes for📖 the k𒈔ids to rest or practice.
The result, Blankens hopes, is a better execution of a tried-and-true format that improves 💯specific parts with💯out resorting to gimmicks.
“There’s not one n𝕴ew thing that’s big but there are different, small details that adds up to a show with a fresher feel,” he says. “All the components are still there, I’m just trying to change up how we use all of it.”