Bono, Brad Pitt, Mariah Carey and Miley Cyrus. The star power – and that’s just a partial list – on “American Idol”‘s charity blowout, “Idol Gives Back,” may be blinding, but not really surprising when you consider what the show pulled off last year. “Idol” raised a jaw-dropping $76 million for children’s charities in the U.S. and Africa.
This year’s fundraiser, whose final details are being worked out, has been in the planning stages for three months. “Normally, people take a year to put these kinds of events together,” says FremantleMedia CEO and “Idol” executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz. “We don’t make it easy on ourselves. And none of us are charity professionals.”
This year the show will have a different format and give donations to fewer charities, six down from last year’s nine.
“We felt nine was too much,” says Frot-Coutaz. “There are all sorts of complications in terms of allocating the money. Also, by having fewer charities, we thought the message to the American public could be more concise.”
Among the charities included this year: the Children’s Defense Fund, Save The Children and Make It Right, Pitt’s foundation to help the residents of New Orleans rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
“I’m not sure what the point of inspiration was, but Brad was in the region and he was devastated to see that two years after Katrina, nothing had really been done,” says Frot-Coutaz. “He wants to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward so that people will move back there.”
There’s a new configuration for the show, as well, which will affect this week’s “Idol” lineup. The contestants will sing, as usual, on Tuesday, beginning at 8 p.m. On Wednesday, “Idol Gives Back” will have its own night, an unprecedented two-and-a-half-hour broadcast, starting at 7:30 p.m., with the show originating from “Idol”‘s main stage and the 3,400-seat Kodak Theater. Then elimination night will follow on Thursday at 9 p.m. Seven singers will be left afterward.
“We decided that ‘Idol Gives Back’ should be its own event,” says Frot-Coutaz. “[Last year] was really awkward,” says Frot-Coutaz. “On the one hand, we were saying, ‘Here are these children all over the world who need help.’ And on the other hand, we were saying, ‘We’re going to make somebody [on the show] really cry.'” So producers put an end to the contestants fears by announcing that nobody would be going home that night.
Producers also plan to fill the time with performances from Cyrus, Carrie Underwood, John Legend, Fergie, among others, clips of Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul at an elementary school in Goshen, CA, and another of Reese Witherspoon reading to kids at a school in New Orleans.
“Last year, we said, ‘Okay, we’ve got our corporate sponsors and if we raise $10 or $15 million from the public, we would be over the moon.’ We ended up raising $55 million. We couldn’t have been more surprised.”
Why does Frot-Coutaz think viewers are so willing to answer the call to help? “People are used to picking up the phone to vote, so it’s already in the language of the show,” she says. “‘Idol’ is a trusted brand at this point.”
But it isn’t always easy. Last year, for example, Simon Cowell initially told producers that he didn’t want to go to Africa. “For Simon, it was emotionally really hard,” says Frot-Coutaz. “This year, he was very keen to do something in the U.S. He’s very passionate about children’s health and cancer, so he’s going to do something with that. In the end, even though this can be very stressful, everyone feels quite proud.”