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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
Jury still out on Idol judges
The hope that Fox's portion of the TV press tour would include a major announcement regarding who will fill the empty chairs on American Idol's judging panel was dashed, quickly and completely, when the network's top programming executives met with media types here in Hollywood on Monday morning.
"The only thing I can tell you with absolute certainty right now is that no one who wasn't on the show last year has signed a deal yet, on either side of the camera, to join American Idol next year," said Fox Entertainment chairman Peter Rice. "There has been tremendous speculation ... (and) much of the information that has been written has been accurate, and some of the information that has been written is wildly inaccurate.
"I'm not going to get into confirming or denying which ones they are."
And with that, pretty much any discussion or line of questioning focused on Idol's future was shut down. Rice declined to comment of reports that Kara DioGuardi is also leaving the show -- on the heels of Simon Cowell's exit at the end of last season and Ellen DeGeneres's announcement last week that she won't return for a second season -- and would not discuss Randy Jackson's status or recent suggestions that producer Nigel Lythgoe might be rejoining the show.
The Internet has been abuzz with rumours and wild guesses regarding who Idol's new judges might be -- the names most often repeated have been Jennifer Lopez and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler -- but for now, rumours and guesses are all that they are.
Rice did say that the network and Idol's producers intend to have a full judging panel -- whether that means three or four isn't clear -- by the time the show's second round of auditions begin in mid-September.
Stay tuned.
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About Brad Oswald
Way back when Brad Oswald was TV-inclined little kid, his exasperated mother used to say things like, "Would you PLEASE turn that thing off and go OUTSIDE and play? If you insist on watching that IDIOT box day after day after day, you will NEVER amount to ANYTHING in this world!"
Well, go figure.
Brad joined the Free Press in 1987 and has spent most of the last two decades getting paid to watch the television as the paper’s resident TV critic. In addition to previewing and reviewing all the latest prime-time shows and covering the local TV industry, he also usually spends a few weeks per year in L.A., interviewing TV stars and attending Big Phony Hollywood Parties.
Brad also writes about comedy and other assorted entertainment topics, and has been known to wander onto local stages try out his own standup material as part of an ongoing quest to satisfy his deep-rooted need for affirmation. He was the winner of Rumor’s Comedy Club’s first Funniest Person With a Day Job contest.
Born and raised in Winnipeg, Brad grew up in St. Vital, attended Dakota Collegiate and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Manitoba before enrolling in Red River College’s Creative Communications program. He played rugby for more than 20 years, which, quite frankly, amounts to a whole lot of blows to the unprotected noggin.
Despite that, during his two-decades-plus at the Free Press, he has accumulated a wealth of knowledge about television and other pop-culture topics, and would certainly not be the worst person to pick for your trivia-contest team.
For some reason, he firmly believes his Mom really would be proud of all this.
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