American Idol (season 11)
The eleventh season of "American Idol" premiered on Fox on January 18, 2012. The show aired on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8/7c. Ryan Seacrest returned as host, while Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler, and Jennifer Lopez all returned as judges. Interscope Records Chairman Jimmy Iovine, a songwriter and producer, also returned as an in-house mentor to work with the contestants on a weekly basis. This season followed the same format as season 10. Tyler and Lopez announced that they would be leaving the show two months after the finale. Lopez later returned as a judge for  the show's thirteenth season. The season set a record when 132 million votes were gathered for the finale. On May 23, 2012, Phillip Phillips became the winner of the eleventh season of "American Idol", beating Jessica Sanchez, the first female recipient of the judges' save. Regional auditions. Auditions took place in the following cities: The New Jersey audition was a late addition to the schedule, the audition was held although the attendance was reportedly low. However, the audition episode was not shown, the first time that a scheduled audition that had taken place was not shown. Contestants known to  have auditioned in New Jersey were listed as having auditioned elsewhere on the official "American Idol" website, for example Alex Wong who auditioned in New Jersey has San Diego listed as his audition city on the official website. Hollywood week and Vegas rounds. The Hollywood rounds of auditions were held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium starting December 12, 2011. There were 309 contestants at the start of Hollywood Week. The contestants performed solo for the first round, and 185 made the cut. Amongst those sent home included actor/comedian Jim Carrey's daughter, Jane Carrey. The second round involved group  performances, and a number of contestants became ill and collapsed in the auditorium. 98 contestants moved on to the third and final round, which were solo performances accompanied by a band or instrument. The contestants were then separated into four rooms, where one room of 28 contestants were all eliminated, while the 70 contestants in the other three rooms all advanced to the Las Vegas round. After Hollywood, the contestants went to Las Vegas for a challenge round where they performed traditional late 1950s song in groups with Elvis Presley "Viva, Elvis!" show as the backdrop. 28 of the 70  contestants were eliminated. Next came a solo round accompanied by an instrument at the stage for Le Rêve at the Wynn Las Vegas. After the 42 remaining contestants sang their last solo at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel, they were called one by one to hear the final judgement. Twelve guys and twelve girls were initially announced as the semi-finalists; however, the judges announced plans to add a thirteenth male semi-finalist between Jermaine Jones, Richie Law, Johnny Keyser and David Leathers Jr. The following week, after the male performances, Jermaine Jones was revealed to be the thirteenth performer . Semi-finalists. The following is a list of semi-finalists who "failed" to reach the finals: Semi-finals. The semi-finals round started on February 28. Below are the two semi-final groups (males and females) with contestants listed in their performance order. The top five males and top five females, along with the three wild card choices by the judges, advanced to the finals. The males started the semifinal round, and the females continued on following night's episode, the contestants perform songs of their choice. This season, long-time vocal coach Debra Byrd was replaced by Jimmy Iovine 's own team in the live shows. Color key: Wild Card round. Following those ten singers advancing on Thursday, March 1, six of the remaining 25 semi-finalists were selected by the judges to compete in the Wild Card round. The Wild Card round immediately began, following the announcement of the ten finalists. Following another performance by each Wild Card contender, the judges then selected three contestants to advance to the final group of 13. Finals. In this season, maintaining the previous season's format, there were 12 weeks of the finals and 13 finalists, with one finalist eliminated per  week based on the American public's votes, with the exception of two weeks ('Top 13' had the judges eliminate one contestant from the two who received a lower vote for each gender, and 'Top 12' had Jones' facing disqualification). Previous season's winner Scotty McCreery recorded the Tim McGraw song cover "Please Remember Me" as the song played during the eliminated contestant's montage. Jimmy Iovine reprised his role as a weekly mentor to contestants, frequently assisted by guest mentors. This season, the fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger and Soyon An were employed as image advisers for the Top 10  finalists. Color key: Top 13 – Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder. On March 7, 2012, the women performed Whitney Houston songs and the men performed Stevie Wonder songs. Seacrest announced that this week will be a competition between the male and female contestants; in a twist, the bottom three of each gender (including the contestant who received the fewest votes for the gender) were announced the next night. The two contestants who got the fewest votes for the gender faced the judges, who decide which contestant is safe from elimination (this "do not" count as a use of "Judges' Save", a  power to save a contestant from elimination right until Top 5). Top 11 – Year They Were Born. Jermaine Jones was disqualified prior to the Wednesday performance show for failing to disclose his criminal past. Footage of executive producers Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick confronting Jones was shown in what would have been his performance slot, in between Van Pelt's and Laine's performances. A clip of his rehearsal, singing "Somewhere Out There", was shown after his removal from the competition. He was not replaced and the elimination went ahead as normal, unlike the situation seen in season 2 due  to the disqualification of Corey Clark. will.i.am served as this week's guest mentor. Top 10 – Billy Joel. Diddy served as the guest mentor this week. The performance with Steven Tyler's fellow member Joe Perry, "Happy Birthday to You" was performed to celebrate Tyler's birthday. Top 9 – Their Personal Idols. Duet/trio songs are introduced this week. Stevie Nicks served as the week's mentor. Top 8 – Songs from the 1980s. Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal served as co-mentors for this week. Top 7 (first week) – Songs from the 2010s. Akon served as the guest mentor this  week. Top 7 (second week) – Songs from Now & Then. Each contestant performed two songs: a "Billboard" number-one hit from the 21st century and a song from the classic soul era. This is the first time in "American Idol" history that the second week did not feature a double elimination following the use of the "judge's save" last week. Top 6 – Queen / Contestant's Choice. Contestants perormed one Queen song and one song of their preference. Top 5 – Songs from the 1960s / British Pop. Steven Van Zandt served as the guest mentor this week. Elimination chart. Color key: Controversies . Disqualification of Jermaine Jones. On March 14, finalist Jermaine Jones was disqualified for concealing arrests and outstanding warrants. Jones, however, denied that he had concealed his previous arrests, as he admitted his arrests when he signed up for "Idol". A police official in a New Jersey town where he was the target of two arrest warrants said that "the case wasn't big enough to merit going after him in California", and a New Jersey legislator commented that for the show "to expose, embarrass and interrogate a young man without an attorney in front of 40 million viewers was an  outrage". Critics suggested that the show may have staged the disqualification to boost ratings. When asked about speculations that producers had prior knowledge of his criminal past and that the producers were simply out to exploit him on-air, Jones replied that "I haven’t even taken my mind into that and why they did what they did, because then I’ll drive myself crazy". Jennifer Lopez music video. The music video of Jennifer Lopez's song, "Dance Again", which aired on the program, was criticized as inappropriate for younger viewers. Dan Gainor of the Culture and Media Institute wrote , "Even the supposedly family-friendly TV shows like "American Idol" are never safe in the hands of Hollywood," and went as far as saying her "skanky new video shows how desperate she is to retain her fame despite her fading relevance. Such sexualized videos aren't appropriate for any children to watch, including Lopez's own twins." Jenna Hally Rubenstein from MTV Buzzworthy also commented about the video's content not being appropriate for a family show, "we thought "Idol" was a family show? This video is less "sit on the couch and chill with dad" and more "call your  boyfriend over immediately." Ed Masley from AZ central.com said that the video was on the verge of being too "steamy" for the show. Gender and ethnic biases. Phillip Phillips became the fifth consecutive white male to win the show, which led to some viewers and critics accusing "American Idol" of having gender and ethnic biases. The bias towards the so-called "white guy with guitar" (WGWG) has been widely commented on before and after the result was known, with some complaining about the predictability of the likely winner. The string of white guitar-playing male winners includes David Cook, Kris  Allen, Lee DeWyze, and Scotty McCreery who won seasons 7, 8, 9, and 10 respectively. Just hours before the finale, Richard Rushfield, author of the book "American Idol: The Untold Story", said, "You have this alliance between young girls and grandmas and they see it, not necessarily as a contest to create a pop star competing on the contemporary radio, but as…who’s the nicest guy in a popularity contest," he says, "And that has led to this dynasty of four, and possibly now five, consecutive, affable, very nice, good-looking white boys." U.S. Nielsen ratings. The premiere was  watched by 21.93 million viewers. While at the time it drew the second largest audience of any entertainment program in the television season, it was down 16 percent from the previous year's premiere, which was watched by 26.23 million viewers. After seven consecutive years as the most watched program on primetime television (eight years in the 18/49 demo), the eleventh season of "American Idol" came in second place to "NBC Sunday Night Football" in total viewers, as well as in the 18/49 demo.