After a bidding war between NBC and FOX, ‘American Idol’ will NOT be returning to television on either network in 2018.
The co-owners of the show couldn’t managed to agree on a deal.
TMZ broke the story, both NBC and FOX made dueling offers to bring the show back as early as summer, 2018. We were told NBC wanted to rotate “Idol”with 2 other shows — “America’s Got Talent” and “The Voice.”
Our sources say the owners of “Idol” — Fremantle and Core — never anted up a counter offer to either network. As for why, Fremantle also owns “AGT” and we’re told the company was pushing hard to pressure Core into agreeing to accept the NBC offer.
We’re told honchos at Core felt Fremantle had a conflict of interest and was pushing “Idol” to make “AGT” the cornerstone of a year-round talent competition.
The Core execs felt Fremantle was trying to diminish the unique value of Idol and the two companies could not see eye to eye and we’re told all the negotiations have been shelved.
They don’t call it show business for nothing.
[TMZ]
