Fox marketing chief Joe Earley tells TV Week the new season of ‘American Idol’ will be “more intimate” and “more raw” than last year.
Mike Darnell, Fox’s president of alternative programming, added, “It’s going back to letting the kids be more emotional and seeing more of their reality. We’re going to allow the public to see a little more of their emotional state.”
The top rated show’s marketing budget will also be bumped higher. “Last year, we had contestants reaching a level of perceived stardom much earlier, both in the show and in our marketing campaign,” Earley said. “We made them look great; the concept was that they had arrived. But looking back, we think that maybe it was too soon to have them arrive. This year, we wanted to make sure we started out with real people.”
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