Original sentence: Also for the first time, contestants were told, face-to-face and usually by themselves, whether they had made it through to the semi-finals (in contrast to previous years when contestants were divided into groups of three, two of which got through).Changes for the fourth season included the cancellation of "Inside Idol", a "streamlined" semi-finals (replaced with a variant of the 12 females, 12 males format popularized by American Idol), and the contestants will be able to bring instruments with them on stage for at least one of the final shows.The changes are said to have been made to remove the "blandness" of the third season.The semi-final shows averaged 1.5 million viewers per night; the ratings remained constant until the Top 8 show, which averaged 1.89 million viewers, much higher than any of the Top 12 shows last year, and was the most watched show on Australian television for that week.The show opened with average ratings (1.4 million) that were on the whole up from last year's ratings
Edited sentence: Also for the first time, contestants were told, face-to-face and usually by themselves, whether they had made it thorough to the semi-final's.Changes for the fourth season include the cancellation of "Inside Idol", a "streamlined" semi-finals (replaced with a variant of the 12 females, 12 males format popularized by American Idol), and the contestants will be able to bring instruments with them on stage.It looks as though Australian Idol could return to it's 2003/4 glory days of the 2+ million average for the latter stage of the finals.Such changes are said to have been made to remove the "blandness" of the third season.The semi-final shows averaged 1.5 million viewers per night and those figures remained constant until the Top 8 show, which averaged 1.89 million viewers, much higher than any of the Top 12 shows last year, and was the most watched show on Australian television for that week.The show opened with average ratings (1.4 million) that were on the whole up on last year's.This was in contrast to previous years when contestants were devided into groups of three, two of which got through