Fox announced today that this week's American Idol 4 performance show broadcast will add an additional phone number for each of the competition's three remaining contestants.
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Throughout the season, each American Idol finalist has only been assigned a single voting phone number, however, with the show now quickly approaching its finale and still the occasional subject of the nagging telephone voting complaints that have plagued the show since its second season, the show's producers have decided to add assign a second line to each of American Idol 4's Final 3 contestants.
Of course, Fox tried the same thing -- with mixed results -- following the Final 2 performance show broadcast of last year's American Idol 3, so other than deciding to expand the additional lines to American Idol 4's Final 3 performance broadcast, the announcement of the additional lines is not unexpected.
Fox even appeared to recycle the exact same quote from American Idol executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz in today's release.
"With the volume of calls this season already exceeding last year's, we felt it was important to give fans additional phone numbers in an attempt to reduce congestion, " Frot-Coutaz stated in the announcement -- a quote that is nearly identical to the one contained in the network's 2004 announcement that detailed the addition of extra phone numbers for American Idol 3's Final 2 performance show.