• by Ed Martin , May 20, 2010

This upfront week has brought with it a collective avalanche of announcements about new broadcast series for the 2010-11 season - but none of them has industry observers talking as excitedly as they are about the fate of Fox's "American Idol." That will be the biggest story of the season to come.

To say that "Idol" is by far Fox's most important prime-time asset is a grand understatement, but it should be remembered that this show has, since its debut in 2002, done much to bolster interest in and revitalize all of broadcast television. It brought live programming back to prime-time network television, advanced the possibilities of interactive television, and revived the long-dormant genre of talent competition.

That said, it's been a bad year for "Idol," which has been plagued by all sorts of issues, most of them the result of poor decision making on the part of its producers at 19 Entertainment. But the worst is yet to come: After next Wednesday's season finale, when we'll learn whether Crystal Bowersox or Lee DeWyze will be crowned the ninth and newest Idol, judge Simon Cowell, arguably the most important player on the "Idol" team, will bid farewell to the show. He'll then begin work on the American version of his British sensation "The X-Factor," which won't debut until fall 2011. And yes, that means Cowell will be missing from prime-time American television throughout the 2010-11 season -- unless he makes a guest appearance on "Idol" or another unscripted series along the way.

Critics -- myself included -- have been loudly complaining about the many changes that have been implemented on "Idol" during the last two seasons: the addition of a fourth judge (which slows the show to a crawl between performances and compromises the chemistry the panel had when there were only three of them); the selection of Kara DioGuardi as that fourth judge (she's smart and pretty and talented but doesn't pop as a TV personality, though she is improving with time); the unnecessary Judges' Save (which dilutes some of the all-important audience interactivity element); the departure of Paula Abdul (and all of the crazy she brought to the show); the decision to bring on Ellen DeGeneres to fill Abdul's chair (she's great as a comedian and talk show host but, as predicted, has brought nothing special to her new gig); an over-reliance on guest celebrity judges during the audition process (which may help explain how the show ended up with so unimpressive a group of finalists this season); and boring celebrity mentors during the actual competition (on hand to promote their latest projects), to name the most obvious. There has also been much complaining about host Ryan Seacrest, who has worn out his welcome with his inexplicably strange behavior this season: dancing in the aisles, making strange comments (about Adam Lambert, among others), etc.

All of this criticism, much of it very instructive, seems to have been largely ignored by the people who actually make the show.

Tellingly, Fox recently featured a very thorough poll about "American Idol" on its Web site. Among the many questions asked was whether or not the respondent was watching "Idol" more, less or the same this season. If the answer was "less," a list of reasons why followed, along with a request to click all that applied. All of the oft-raised issues mentioned above were included on it.

Maybe some folks in the "Idol" mix are finally listening to the critics. Regardless, it would seem to me that they should be able to figure most of this out without resorting to a public poll or focus groups. After all, when "Idol" was first created, the public wasn't asked for feedback, and look what happened!