You may have had your flu shot, but are you ready for Idol fever?
Both Canadian Idol and American Idol are set to return to the CTV lineup in 2005. American Idol will premier Tuesday, Jan. 18 with a two-hour episode and will be followed the next day with a one-hour episode in keeping with its traditional bi-weekly Tuesday/Wednesday 8:00 pm timeslots. The usual judges will be back for the fourth instalment of the series that promises many William Hung-esque performers to kick off the season.
Meanwhile, CTV and Insight Productions are currently finalizing plans to begin production on Canadian Idol‘s third season which kicks off with the show’s largest audition tour (last season featured nine cities). The auditions begin in February with the season premiere slated for sometime this summer. Last season saw ratings increase 14% over the previous year with an average audience of 2.2 million, and an audience of over four million for the Sept. 16 finale. Audience participation was also extremely high in 2004 for CI – in total, 32 million votes were cast by viewers, though apparently none of them were to complain about Canadian pseudo-celebrity Ben Mulroney who will return as host. There has been no confirmation yet regarding sponsorship and brand integration deals with the show.
