Canadian Idol (season 6) - Show Format Changes

Show Format Changes

This year of Canadian Idol promises to have a number of changes and surprises to the usual show format.

• Jully Black joined the cast of Canadian Idol as the new correspondent and mentor.

• As introduced last season, competitors are allowed to play instruments in their auditions and performances.

• "Last Chance" Online Auditions were introduced to allow competitors who could not make it to an audition city/date, or who did not receive a gold ticket for their in-person audition, to submit a two-minute audition video on the Canadian Idol website (idol.ctv.ca) for consideration.

• This season, apparently due to the increase in extremely talented contestants, the number of semi-finalist was increased by 2, producing a Top 24. Also for the first time, the chosen semi-finalists were not evenly split between male and female performers: 15 men and 9 women made up the Top 24. Due to the uneven number of men and women, the performance groups during the semi-final rounds were also not being split according to gender. Additionally, during the semi-final elimination rounds the composition of the two performance groups varied from week to week; thus, unlike in previous years, a performer did not always compete against the same sub-group of semifinalists, or on the same performance night.

• Because of the increase in the total number of semi-finalist (24, instead of 22), the last week of semifinals saw 6 competitors (instead of the usual 4) eliminated in order to have a Top 10.

• Elimination song changed to "When I'm Gone" by Simple Plan.