Where’s Idol headed? You be the judge (’cause nobody else wants to…)

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/07/2010 (5879 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If it’s July, then this must be Hollywood; if it’s Hollywood, then I must be smack-dab in the middle of the summer version of the U.S. networks’ semi-annual press tour, which brings together TV critics and media-minded journalists from around North America to preview and discuss the upcoming television season.

The press tour is a two-week-long whirlwind of tube-obsessed activities that range from closed-circuit screenings of new-show pilots (so critics can spend at least part of the day doing what they do best, which is lying in bed in their jammies watching TV), press-conference interviews with actors, producers and writers of new and returning prime-time series, and evening events that follow a variety themes and locales but basically boil down to TV-industry folks and media types eating, drinking and chatting in close confines.

In the first few days of this edition of the tour, we’ve dropped in on the Hollywood-studio sets of Desperate Housewives, Parenthood and the new NBC drama Undercovers, spent a couple of days interviewing the stars and producers of new shows on the CBS and CW networks, mingled with the greater mass of stars from shows on those networks at an outdoor party atop an abandoned parking garage across the street from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and now spent the first half of this day dealing with NBC’s new roster of shows.

That’s a lot of mull over, but when it comes to the TV press tour, there’s always something else that grabs the assembled critical mass’s attention….. and this time, several days before Fox is scheduled to make its presentation, it’s American Idol.

Ellen DeGeneres has announced she’s leaving the show after just one season on the judging panel, online reports are suggesting Kara DioGuardi has also been cut loose by the show’s producers and, of course, there’s still the hunt for a Simon Cowell replacement to be considered.

This Idol chaos doesn’t threaten to derail the press-tour agenda in the way the Conan-vs.-Jay-vs.-NBC kerfuffle turned last January’s winter tour upside down, but speculation and downward-spiraling analysis are sure to clutter the conversation between now and Fox’s arrival at press tour on Monday.

Who’ll be seated alongside Randy Jackson on Idol’s judging panel when the show’s new season premieres in January? J-Lo? Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler? The betting here is that the next few days will bring many more questions than answers.

Stay tuned.