The second season begins tomorrow

For decades now, there have been two television seasons every year: the main one that runs from September to May and the summer season where repeats prevailed and shows the netowrks didn't have faith in were "burned off", so the networks didn't completely lose their investments.

But all that changed with American Idol. The 800 pound gorilla has actually split the traditional Sept-May season and created another (typically referred to as the "second season"). FOX goes into hibernation during the Fall (especially this past fall, which had no new breakout hits)-- exacerbated by the Baseball playoffs in October-- and then explodes in January with Idol (as well as the hit 24, which premieres tomorrow). About all the other networks can do is do their best to stay out of the way.

I watched the second season of Idol fairly regularly, but the lead-up to the final 12 in subsequent seasons was so excruciating for me (and, let's face it, the show is very time-consuming with over 40 hours in just a few months) that I stopped watching altogether.

But ratings have, miraculously (in Neilsen standards), kept getting better throughout the years, so FOX is not about to change the schedule and air fewer tedious try-out episodes. I just saw the schedule in the paper, so I thought I'd post it here.

This week, Idol has two-hour episodes on Tuesday, 1/16 & Wednesday, 1/17, which will showcase the auditions in Minneapolis and Seattle.

1/23 & 1/24: Memphis & New York (1 hr eps)
1/30 & 1/31: Birmingham & San Antonio (1 hr eps)
2/6: L.A. (1 hr ep)
2/7: "Rest of the Best"
2/13 & 2/14: The Hollywood round, which ends with the Top 24 announcement. (2 hr)
2/20 & 2/21: 2-hour episodes with the top 12 men and then women performing and the viewers finally get to vote.
2/22 (Thursday): Hour-long results episode.
2/27 & 2/28: The Top Ten men & then women perform in 90-minute episodes. Viewers vote.
3/1 (Thurs): Hour-long results show.
3/6 & 3/7: Top 8 men and then women perform. Voting.
3/8 (Thurs): The final 12 is announced.
3/13: First of the Top 12. Voting.
3/14: First show where one contestant gets booted.

So, basically, FOX is airing its Sunday shows, Prison Break, 24, House, Bones, 'Til Death, The O.C. (until the end of Feb) and American Idol the next 2 months.

And you know what? It'll work this year, just like it did last year and the year before. FOX hammers the competition so hard from January to May that it actually catches up to the ratings of the other networks that put their best efforts into the entire Sept-May season.

It's amazing. But Idol-fever will cool sometime-- and FOX will be in big trouble when it can't adequately fill its schedule without it (remember how NBC was the past two years? This will actually be worse).