Simon Cowell Reveals American Idol Needs to Go Younger
May 9, 2008

Although American Idol is still one of the most popular shows on television, producers of Fox’s mega-singing competition will be shaking things up at some point soon to keep things fresh. Already on the air for seven seasons, it’s been reported and suggested that a number of changes might be implemented into the show and while American Idol inches closer to this year’s top “Idol”, judge Simon Cowell revealed to Extra that the minimum age requirement might eventually have to be lowered to 14 years of age.

According to Cowell, who Digital Spy also reports Extra's story, the age requirement might need to be lowered across the board, "All these shows, including Idol, in the future are going to have to go younger. We're going to have to drop the age from 16 to 14 soon."

While we’re still watching American Idol evolve after all of these years, lowering the age might be the wrong way to go even though Idol falls squarely within the just-barely-teen audience demographic. The Miley Cyrus’s of the world seem few and far between. Do we really need 100 of them topping the charts? And, like so many young stars, how much mileage can you really get out of a young teen before their voice cracks and they start to sound like Barry White? Then again, what are we thinking? "The Walrus of Love" made a ton of R&B love with record sales of over 50 million.

According to the report, Cowell also suggested that showing more emotion to win votes – in other words, crying – doesn’t hurt if you’re trying to move forward and be a hit with fans at home.

Whatever the case, this is all starting to sound a little too overtly Pavlovian.

After this latest tidbit, we just have one question – has American Idol now officially jumped the...