LOS ANGELES — For a franchise that turned Kelly Clarkson into a daytime television host and Carrie Underwood from a contestant into a judge on the very show she once won, reaching a 25th season is less a renewal than a reckoning with the show’s own mythology. ABC confirmed Tuesday that American Idol will return in 2027 on the network and next-day on Disney+ and Hulu, with auditions set to begin in under a month.
The network made the announcement from a position of unusual commercial strength. Season 24, which aired through the first half of 2026, averaged 7.08 million cross-platform viewers per episode measured over seven days, up 11 percent from the prior season, according to figures released by ABC. The season premiere drew 6.22 million viewers, the largest Idol premiere audience in four years. Country singer Hannah Harper won the title in a finale that generated 3.2 million social interactions across platforms and ranked as the top-rated reality episode in network primetime year-to-date 2026, as The Hollywood Reporter reported.
What ABC has not confirmed is who will be on stage for the milestone season. Judges Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie, and Underwood, along with host Ryan Seacrest, are widely expected to return. Their deals for Season 25 have not been finalized, and the network’s renewal announcement made no reference to the talent lineup beyond what is already public. That separation of renewal news from deal status is standard practice in competitive talent negotiations, but it still leaves the show’s most commercially significant question unresolved: whether the same panel that delivered those Season 24 numbers carries into the anniversary year.
The answer matters more than it would for an ordinary renewal cycle. Bryan is one of country music’s most active touring artists, with a fan base that makes his presence on the panel a meaningful promotional asset in the Southern and Midwestern markets where the show draws heavily. Richie, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and one of the most commercially successful recording artists of the 1980s, carries cross-generational name recognition that the franchise’s producers have treated as a structural anchor for the panel. Underwood’s presence carries a different logic entirely: she won Season 4 of the original Fox run in 2005, built one of the most commercially successful careers in country music history, and returned to the franchise not as a nostalgic cameo but as a working judge. For a meaningful segment of the audience, the question of whether she re-signs for the 25th season is itself the news.
Auditions begin August 25 with the return of Idol Across America, the virtual nationwide search that connects aspiring singers across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., face-to-face with producers through video. VIP Day on August 25 is limited to the first 250 singers who register. Open-call dates continue through September 28. Candidates must be at least 15 years old by February 15, 2027, and the auditions are open to eligible participants worldwide. Registration and full eligibility requirements are available at americanidol.com/auditions.
Executive producer and showrunner Megan Michaels Wolflick has reduced the audition standard to a question she says she applies to every performer who moves through the process: whether she would want to hear that person sing again. “Just stand out,” Wolflick has said. The virtual format changes where those voices can come from. It does not change what they have to prove.
American Idol premiered on Fox in June 2002, introducing American television to a format built around public voting, a judging panel whose dynamics became as watched as the contestants themselves, and the spectacle of ordinary people encountering the music industry for the first time on a national stage. The show ran for 15 seasons on Fox before the network cancelled it in 2016. ABC revived the competition for the 2018 broadcast season and has run it continuously since, bringing the network’s consecutive run to nine seasons heading into Season 25.
The franchise’s commercial argument has always been its alumni list. Clarkson, the inaugural winner, moved from pop recording artist to Grammy winner to daytime television host. Jennifer Hudson, a Season 3 contestant who was eliminated without winning, went on to complete the EGOT, collecting an Academy Award, four Grammy Awards, a Tony, and an Emmy. Jordin Sparks, the Season 6 winner, was at the time of her debut album the youngest artist to sell a million copies in the United States. The franchise has not produced a mainstream chart breakout in several seasons, which is part of what the milestone anniversary year needs to answer.
Season 25 will be produced by Fremantle and 19 Entertainment, part of Sony Pictures Television. The season will air on ABC and stream on Disney+ and Hulu, with live shows available on Disney+ once the competition reaches its broadcast phase. That multi-platform arrangement is consistent with broader streaming rights shifts that have reshaped how major networks position their flagship unscripted properties across the television landscape.
The one confirmation missing from Tuesday’s renewal was the panel itself. Their names are attached to the season regardless.
