Originally posted Monday, June 25, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
ABC’s ‘American Idol” will be coming back to Atlanta September 20 for the judges round season 17.
UPDATE: 8/25/2018. I was given wrong information. The auditions on September 20 will not feature the judges after all, just producers. It sounds like just another open audition. My apologies. It was added later and will be at Infinite Energy. The information has not been released yet on when or where they are holding the auditions where the three main judges will appear.
“Idol” has held its regional auditions in Atlanta with the judges seven previous times while on Fox: seasons 1 through 3, season seven, season nine, season 13 and season 15.
This means Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan will be around as summer turns to fall. Typically, the judges' taping takes two or three days. For both seasons 13 and 15, Fox used the W Hotel in Midtown as its home base.
And while host Ryan Seacrest usually shows up at the regional auditions, he didn't make it to Atlanta for season 15 in 2015. But since they only have three "regional" cities now, instead of five to seven, Seacrest will likely clear his schedule to be here especially since this is his hometown.
The show will not come locally for the first round bus tour. The closest early round will be August 31 in Charlotte. The entire schedule is here.
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Credit: Rich Fury
Credit: Rich Fury
The Radio Disney Awards featured oodles of “American Idol” love.
Season 16 winner Maddie Poppe sang "Going Going Gone," Carrie Underwood took home a Hero award for her charitable works and Kelly Clarkson won the Icon Award.
Randy Jackson introduced Carrie. "She has never ever changed, and I love that," he said.
Carrie sang "The Champion" live for the first time with Ludacris.
Kelly and Carrie also met up on the red carpet for a mini reunion.
Now that Disney's ABC airs "Idol," this celebration is synergistic. And Disney was kind enough to bring along rival "The Voice" winner Brynn Cartelli (Clarkson was her coach) to introduce Clarkson along with Poppe.
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Haley Reinhart teamed up with Catie Turner and Postmodern Jukebox to do a jazzy cover of "Oops! I Did It Again." Catie performed that song on "Idol."
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"American Idol" producer Trish Kinane talked to Deadline.com about bringing the show back and the Disney synergy. She said research showed the fans didn't want it to go away and ABC's viewer profile fit that of 'Idol" while not mentioning that Fremantle and Core Media were desperate for the revenue.
She said Disney has enabled winner Poppie to show up on all sorts of Disney properties such as “Good Morning America,” “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” the Radio Disney Awards, ESPN, Jimmy Kimmel, et. al. As MJ’s Big Blog notes, Fox properties didn’t have nearly as many places for its winners to promote themselves.
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Season 7 winner David Cook returns to "Kinky Boots" on Broadway from July 17 to Sept. 9. He played Charlie Price earlier this year during the musical.
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Season 10 winner Scotty McCreery recently got married to his long-time girlfriend Gabi.
They are now on a honeymoon in the French Polynesian.
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Season 9's Katie Stevens, now starring on Freeform's "The Bold Type," just got engaged.
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Clay Aiken Instagram of the week
He posted an idea on who could replace Roseanne Barr on "The Conners":
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