Author: Shirley Halperin

Michael Becker / Fox

Caleb Johnson performs “Dazed and Confused.”

Spare us the numbers because we’ve already heard the bad news ad nauseam: not only is American Idol viewership down this year, the ratings have basically bungee jumped off a cliff. Those who thought it couldn’t get worse after season 12’s precipitous drop — in the double digits, as it is again in 2014 — were sorely mistaken. The latest episode of season 13 only pulled a 6-share, a smidge short of the 10 million mark at 9.83 million viewers.

It’s a shame, really — not just because Idol is a series that changed the face of television (and still serves as a reminder of the importance of music in every person’s life) — but also because, thanks to some key tweaks, the show is surprisingly entertaining this season.

Take, for starters, the talent pool. Season 13’s remaining nine contestants are strangers to most Americans, but a few of the bunch not only show real promise, they have the charisma to keep you interested. Among them: rocker Caleb Johnson, whose take on Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” on Wednesday’s show stayed true to the song’s sludgy origins and felt more like an episode of pioneering singing composition Rock Star. In fact, Johnson pulled off Robert Plant so well, that it was easy to forget that he only played a one-minute forty-second version (Rickey Minor looking somewhat scary in rock garb snapped you back to real-time, however). Ditto for Jena Irene, whose vocal style rides the upper register in a similar way to — dare we say it? — Kelly Clarkson. She chose Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life” for her “I’m With the Band” tune and did the perennial right.

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Other songs performed on Wednesday included Fleetwood Mac’s classic “Rihannon,” the Beatles’ epic “The Long and Winding Road” and the lesser-known “If It Hadn’t Been for Love” — not the corny fare which Idol viewers had become accustomed and numbed to.

To be sure, Idol’s new team of producers, which include veterans of the MTV Video Music Awards (the Miley Cyrus edition) Jesse Ignjatovic and Evan Prager, have done a stellar job of getting rid of some longtime Idol annoyances — the finger-counting display when a contestant’s voting phone number is announced, Randy Jackson’s endless dawg calls, the no-phones-in-the-studio audience policy — and spiced up some key elements, like the results night performers (the buzzy Royal Teeth and Jake Bugg, in recent weeks), the look of the show and the set and the weekly elimination kabuki that goes down between the finalists and Ryan Seacrest. Also fine-tuned (finally): the long-derided group number, which for the first time in many years, didn’t reek of cheese on performance night.

To boot, the process is faster, cleaner and clearer. And the judges look like they’re genuinely enjoying themselves. Frontrunners are obvious and flash-in-the-pans don’t last long (we’re looking at you, MK Nobilette), which is how it should be on a show like American Idol that portends to be on a genuine mission to find the next music superstar. (Harry Connick Jr. is certainly taking that mandate seriously.)

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Of course, we here at The Hollywood Reporter realize that Idol‘s success rate is not unlike the music industry’s — maybe 1.5 out of 10 acts will see some momentum and a semblance of a proper career. The Carrie Underwoods and Phillip Phillips‘ of the world are the exception, not the rule. Which brings us back to season 13 and its good fortune of offering variety. No two singers are the same, it seems, and there’s not the obvious pair who cancel each other out or make for a dull finale. Should Caleb and Jena go up against each other in May — with Adam Lambert making a surprise appearance by accompanying them both — we can’t hate on that.

Idol‘s fate is currently being decided as the network, with Upfronts looming, considers a pick-up for another season. Producers are also looking at budgets moving forward to see whether further cutbacks are needed — either to the frequency of the show or its production. To all these worries we say: give Idol another chance. Let the generation that grew up with the show — and abandoned it — cycle out. Don’t skimp on the set, the performers or the talent search, but $15 million for a judge might not fit in Idol‘s new world order. Let the new blood have their say — and their way.

Twitter: @shirleyhalperin

Michael Becker / FOX

The biggest difference viewers will notice when American Idol season 13 kicks off on Jan. 15? Not the snazzy Roman numeral logo or the postcard-inspired, Greetings from Asbury Park-esque graphics denoting each audition city. With a new team in place — including executive producers Per Blankens, Den of Thieves, comprised of MTV veterans Jesse Ignjatovic and Evan Prager, and David Hill, CEO of Fox Sports Media Group — the changes are less visual but no less impactful: the show’s three judges, Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban and Harry Connick, Jr., leaning in to confer amongst themselves; agreeing with a pointed commentary rather than rolling their eyes; respecting each others’ careers, not gloating in another’s failure.

“We stressed that we wanted a panel [of people who] enjoyed each others’ company and could actually sit down together or go out to lunch,” says Blankens, who was showrunner on the Swedish version of Idol from 2007 through 2011 (during Blankens’ last season on the show, it commanded a 51 percent share of the country’s total TV viewers). “If we don’t have a good time behind the camera then we can’t expect the viewers to have a good time when they see the show.”

It’s a congeniality that was painfully missing during season 12, when Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj scrapped like two high schoolers as fellow judges Randy Jackson and Keith Urban struggled to keep the peace. “It was a nightmare,” one show insider tells The Hollywood Reporter, adding that the casting ended up, “really biting everybody in the ass.”

Even now, eight months later, host Ryan Seacrest has a hard time talking about the drama that went down both onscreen and off. “Keith and I got along really well last season,” he cracks when asked if he enjoyed going to work last year. Urban swiftly jumps in to elaborate. “There’s more focus in front of the desk this season instead of behind it, which is where it should be,” says the country singer.

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With the Fox show’s 2013 ratings in free-fall (averaging 13.2 million viewers in season 12, down from 17.2 in season 11), matching the numbers of 2002, the powers-that-be, which also include production partners FremantleMedia and CORE Media group, are looking backwards in order to move forward. “Our motto this year is back to basics,” says Blankens. “We think that this is the best show there is — the original that’s inspired others — so it’s not that viewers necessarily want that big gimmicky change in order to come back to the TV couches. They want to see the show they’ve grown to love.”

Prager, whose production role is on the floor while Ignjatovic’s is in the control room, agrees. “We’re finding the elements that we want to reinvigorate, but each one has to check all those boxes of what makes Idol great.”

Indeed, Connick likens the appeal of Idol to that of an American mainstay like cheeseburgers (“It ain’t nothing fancy — it’s a familiar, simple formula; 50 years from now, people are still going to be making cheeseburgers”) or a brand like Coca Cola. “Remember when they came out with new Coke and everybody was upset by it? It couldn’t have teed up the return of Coke Classic any better,” he explains. “When Coke Classic came out, it exploded even bigger than it was before because it created this void and people missed it. And I think that’s what this year can potentially do for this brand. People sort of missed their classic American Idol. And it’s back.” Adds Lopez: “There can be tons of other sodas out there, but there’s only one Coca-Cola, baby.”

But the battle for eyeballs and engagement has been a fierce one in recent years, with NBC’s The Voice advancing to the front of the pack. Its season five finale, after which Tessanne Chin would be declared winner, drew 12.6 million viewers while Idol’s season 12, won by Candice Glover, notched 12.1 million. And with The Voice’s Emmy win for Outstanding Reality-Competition in Sept. 2013 (a prize never achieved by Idol), the competition got more heated. Even former Idol EP Nigel Lythgoe, who was let go following the 2013 finale (and learned of his firing while on vacation in the Bahamas), weighed in on the perceived snub, tweeting that Idol was “The first, the best and the program that changed the face of TV.”

With a trailblazer legacy and a proven track record of hits in the music world (among the alums to succeed beyond the show: season one’s Kelly Clarkson, season 11’s Phillip Phillips and season four’s Carrie Underwood, who helped draw nearly 19 million people to NBC’s live musical presentation of The Sound of Music), why, then, has Idol lost so much of its luster?

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According to Brad Adgate, Senior VP of Research at Horizon Media, the buzz has simply dissipated. “The show was always mentioned on morning radio and featured on the covers of entertainment magazines. … There was this kind of ancillary press that Idol was always able to get. Now, it’s not there.” The trick, he says, is to “recapture that in some way.” Only then will the show feel relevant to younger viewers “who are leaving in droves.”

The judges and producers don’t necessarily disagree, and in an effort to appeal to the younger sect, have made one major change in updating the music. With musical director Rickey Minor returning to the fold after a two-year stint on The Tonight Show (and bringing along season eight finalist Allison Iraheta as a backup singer), season 13’s Hollywood Week saw group numbers of songs like Lorde’s “Royals” and Alex Clare’s “Too Close,” an EDM hit. “It was a concerted effort to get fresh music into the show,” says Ignjatovic. “We want to reflect what’s popular today.”

When later speaking to THR, Lopez cited Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” and newcomer Ariana Grande as “pop stars,” yes, but also “great singers.” Another plus, said Lopez: “There’s exposure to so many different types of music that anybody can do anything; That’s what’s being reflected on the radio right now, you’re seeing a lot of variety.”

Viewers may however be surprised to learn that even though the contestants have their choice of many more contemporary songs, plenty still go for the classics like Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” Pink’s “Give Me A Reason,” for example, was on the Hollywood Week list, but “nobody picked it,” a source reveals, still flummoxed.

Perhaps it’s a way of testing someone’s ability to make the right song choice in a relatively unrestricted environment. As the insider explains, the directive by Idol’s new team is to allow “more wide-open themes” so that “everyone will always be able to sing whatever song they want to do.”

Adds Ignjatovic: “It’s really a simple concept. And it works.”

Twitter: @shirleyhalperin

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

You could say rockers swept the Golden Globes music categories on Sunday night.

Alex Ebert, frontman for psychedelic collective Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, picked up a Best Original Score trophy for his work on All Is Lost. He was up against several scoring veterans, including John Williams (The Book Thief) and Hans Zimmer (12 Years a Slave). But music played an even more important role in the Robert Redford-starrer, which featured little spoken dialogue. To that end, it had something in common with Gravity, for which another newcomer, Steven Price, was nominated.

Ebert seemed equally surprised by the win. “I cannot believe this,” he said from the stage. “This is crazy.” He got it together quickly enough to deliver a stellar line, thanking writer/director J.C. Chandor. In his hand, said Ebert, “the most deft pen is a clumsy tool.”

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Equally well-spoken, Bono took the stage with bandmates The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr. and Adam Clayton to accept the Best Original Song award for “Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. 

Noting Nelson Mandela‘s influence on the band, guitarist The Edge told the A-List audience, “We have been working for President Mandela since the 70s … since we were teenagers when we did our very first concert again apartheid. It’s taken us 35 years to write this song.”

Added Bono: “This man turned our lives upside down — right side up. He refused to hate because he thought love would do a better job.”

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Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who stood up when the winners were announced, got a special shout-out for “helping out,” as did Madonna manager Guy Oseary, new to U2’s management family via a new deal with Live Nation.

Other song contenders included Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff for “Sweeter Than Fiction” (from One Chance) and Coldplay for “Atlas” (from Hunger Games; Catching Fire).

Ultimately, offered Bono, “We’re good at the dysfunctional love stories.”