The show could still work if people weren't such assholes voting time and time again for the worst contestants just for spite.

How can you fix a show that is kicking ass in the ratings and sends other shows for cover (see DWTS and LOST).

It is what it is.

That being said, we could use a Paula Transplant, how about Lulu, Newton John, Bette Midler, or even Sharon Osborne?

Despite its huge ratings, the producers WILL do some fixing if Sanjaya makes it anywhere near the top 3. No mystery that the numbers are high because there's a huge audience that is watching to see just how far some of the worst performers will go (and Simon's scathing comments after each performance).

But if something is not done to prevent the truly bad from advancing to the final stages, then the show becomes a farce and loses all credibility with the serious viewers (the ones that watch to see talent).

Guess that means it's time to double my Sanjaya votes next week!

You have obviously forgotten all about season 3. AI suffered through that season, made little if any changes, had a great season 4 (mainly due to Carrie and Bo becoming fan favorites early, but make no mistake, the country had to suffer with the Scott Savols of the competition, and AI just keeps marching on).

they are still making huge money and don't need to change a thing

I gotta print up the

Vote for Sonjaya or Die T-Shirts

Actually, AI made a HUGE change between season 3 and season 4. Season 4 was when they seperated the boys from the girls and had the audience whittle the top 24 down four a week. The previous system was completely different.

Three words: Bring back Dunkleman!

Make sure you learn how to spell his name correctly, so you don't look like a complete ass.

The only things I'd change are:

Let the judges bring back one boy and one girl once the final say 8 or 10 as a re-entry.

Give the judges some sort of percentage of the vote. Small but something.

And most of all stop with the X number of boys and girls being cut before the final 12. It's complete BS that there has to be a certain number of each. This year is the prime example. There were girls cut that are far better than the bottom 5 boys. Just let the most talented go. So what if it ends up being all boys or girls.

I'm talking about the top 12, and how they get rid of them. The other stuff is just another way to pump up more awareness of AI (with more voting, trying to make it more democratic). Not much as changed in terms of how they whittle down the top 12.

every year there is someone people love to hate i.e. Scott Savols, Anthony Fedorov, Jon Peter Lewis, John Stevens, Kevin Covais, Mikalah Gordon, Sanjaya, etc. This is GREAT for the show and the producers know this. These people have no shot of winning the show but more people may tune in to watch in the hopes of seeing them get voted off. It is a way to maintain watercooler buzz. The producers and Simon know this and that is probably why someone like Sanjaya or Mikalah gets through.

Let them sing 2.5 minutes each. No commericals.

I don't see the "vote all you want" thing disappearing--not only, as was mentioned above, do they get to say "we got 50 million votes," but it also presumably helps their big sponsor cingular sell a lot of phones with free AI text message plans.

if sanjaya wins you will not have to fix idol, it will be gone for good.

Bette Midler could be friggin' hilarious on a show like this. Her live shows were always great fun, and usually raunchy as hell.

Sanjaya is obviously not going to win; people need to calm down. He can be kept on for a number of weeks, because people who are voting seroiusly have their votes spread between lots of contestants right now. When there are fewer contestants, the opportunity for the joke candidate to stay on goes away.

I've always been amazed at how hard it seems to be to find 12 competent singers on this show considering I could find 12 great singers in my own home town. I think they should open the contest up to older singers and singers who have small time professional careers.

Then the show would look like this:

The show had it's highest ratings this season than ever before....why would Fox want to "fix" it?

This would be more plausible if you lived somewhere other than Eugene.

El Scorcho should be on



But I also find it hard to believe.

Howard Stern's campaign doesn't do shite. The man had a much larger audience back in 2004 and couldn't influence the Presidential election like he said he could, so how can he possibly be influencing a competition where even more people vote than in the Presidential election when he has a fraction of the audience? The worst contestant has lasted longer than he / she should have in seasons before this, when Stern never talked about it.

I'm tired of the bitching about this Indian guy and how he's still on the show. You know who's responsible? The people that saw him audition and still put him on the show. You can't tell me he gave a great initial audition and has sucked every week since then.

I've always believed that the show is rigged anyway. The people keeping him on the show are the same people that put him on there. The controversy gets them more free publicity.