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Don’t get excited all you longtime American Idol fans. Paula Abdul is not being replaced, and neither is Simon Cowell or Randy Jackson. The judging panel is simply being added to. I’m not exactly sure if their reasoning makes sense, but I would think it’s a simple case of them realizing it’s time for change after beginning to fall in the ratings the past few seasons.

Ryan Seacrest made the big announcement this morning on his radio show. Sitting alongside the others at the judges’ table this season will be Kara DioGuardi, a Grammy-Nominated songwriter. She has written songs for many of today’s top artists, including Natasha Bedingfield, Celine Dion, and Gwen Stefani. She’s also written for American Idol graduates Carrie Underwood, Clay Aiken, David Archuleta, and Kelly Clarkson, including one of the latter’s biggest hits Breakaway. She has also written songs for movies and TV such as Hannah Montana, Cheetah Girls 3, and Camp Rock. That’s just the beginning. In other words, she has a very impressive discography.

Series creator Simon Fuller explains, “we are turning the heat up on Idol this year.” He continues, saying that DioGuardi will “bring a new level of energy and excitement to the show.” In other words, he’s admitting the show is troubled and headed in a dangerous direction, and he’s trying to fix it just shy of jumping the shark. Mike Darnell, the president of alternative Programming at FOX, mentions that for the first seven seasons, Paula Abdul was the only woman at the judges’ table, and this move will add more “girl power.”

The question on everyone’s minds today after hearing this is will this really help the show? Is four judges the answer? Canadian Idol is very successful and they use the four judge system, so it’s not impossible for it to work well. I think they all recognized that the show needed something fresh and were afraid to disrupt the present balance of replacing a judge. Yet in some ways, Randy, Paula, and Simon aren’t exactly current. DioGuardi’s discography certainly is, but I wonder if this news will have contestants brown-nosing too much and singing all her songs to audition and further themselves in the competition..

Regardless, I think some type of a change was due on the show. And maybe that’s part of the reason Nigel Lythgoe left the series to concentrate on So You Think You Can Dance and other projects last month. DioGuardi may not be the answer, but I appreciate the attempt. This guarantees the show to run a little longer as well, so perhaps they’re considering running the show nearly always two hours on performance night, similar to what So You Think You Can Dance did this season (and speaking of this show … I like they’re successful formula of having two permanent judges and a rotating judges’ third spot.)

Our only choice is to wait it out until late January when the show returns. My best educated guess, after following this show for all of its seven seasons, and covering it with recaps, commentary, and interviews for the past four, is that fans will never totally embrace this. Not everyone appreciates change, yet another faction have been dying for some type of change, anything, for quite some time. I think it will bring more viewers either way, as people will tune in “just to see.”

For more information on American Idol, see SirLinksalot: American Idol.

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