Producers Like Fourth Judge, Kara Says It’s “Not Easy”

The American Idol producers are reportedly “pleased” with the addition of a fourth judge, Kara DioGuardi.  While I sometimes like Kara as a person, I am not sure if I feel she adds anything useful to the panel in terms of critique for the contestants.  Still, I know it’s her first season and I want to be fair.  The major issue I have is that the show runs long so some contestants (like Adam Lambert a couple weeks ago) end up getting cut off and it’s not right. 

One executive, Cecile Frot-Coutaz, says that they have a solution: “It’s hard for (the judges) to figure out whether they’ve spoken for 30 seconds or 45 seconds, so … we’re going to try and help them with that and give them a sense of their timing so that we keep it under control a bit more,” Frot-Coutaz said.

Kara also reflected, in the current issue of OK! magazine, that the job can be difficult:  "I probably in my own way didn’t really take in what a huge thing it was, just ’cause it would be so overwhelming.  Until I kind of showed up and was like, `Omigod, what am I doing here? This is, like, huge!’ And then it really hit me when we went live that, wow, `I got to speak live in front of 30 million people?’  It’s not an easy job.”

image © 2009 FOX BROADCASTING CR: Jack Guy/FOX