American Idol's premiere date for the 2018 revival on ABC has officially been revealed.

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American Idol's sixteenth season will debut with a two-hour episode on Sunday, March 11 at 8PM ET/PT.

American Idol host Ryan Seacrest announced the news on the Monday, November 6 episode of Live! with Kelly & Ryan, which also stars Kelly Ripa. 

New Idol judge Katy Perry also tweeted the premiere date by posting a photo of herself and fellow judges Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan.

The nationwide search for the next American Idol kicked off in August, with auditions having taken place in 23 cities ranging from Portland, OR, to Orlando, FL.

Hopefuls also had the opportunity to submit audition videos online through different social-media platforms using the official hashtag #TheNextIdol, and the show racked in over 300,000 posts. Also, for the first time in American Idol history, hopefuls could audition through a livestream platform.

Auditions in front of the judges commenced in early October.

Perry told Us Weekly last month that the judging panel's style of feedback was "to be determined," but she said none of them "believe in being nasty."

"I think what we believe in is being constructive and giving constructive criticism because it doesn't help anyone, and people are really sensitive and we understand because we've all walked into a room like that at one time in our lives," Perry, 33, explained to the magazine.

Richie, 68, added: "I think I'm going to change the word 'nasty' to 'brutally honest.' We don't have time to warm up here. We only have a couple of months to get this right and so if we had a couple of years to work with these acts, artists, fantastic. But I don't like the word 'nasty.' I think nasty only implies that we're going to hurt someone."

And Bryan, 41, admitted that the tough part for him was figuring out when to stop an audition if the contestant's performance is subpar.

All of American Idol's 15 previous seasons aired on Fox, and Seacrest served as the host of every edition with different judges coming and going. ABC announced in May it would air the revival of the show.

American Idol is produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment, a division of CORE Media Group. The series is being executive produced by Trish Kinane, Jennifer Mullin, and Megan Wolflick.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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