The ninth season of American Idol premiered on Fox on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, and concluded on Wednesday, May 26, 2010.

[1] Simon Cowell, Kara DioGuardi, and Randy Jackson returned as judges and were joined by Ellen DeGeneres, who was brought on as a replacement for Paula Abdul after a series of guest judges filled in during the auditions.

Multiple contestants from this season were signed to record deals, including DeWyze, Bowersox, Casey James, Michael Lynche, and Siobhan Magnus.

Several contestants who did not even make it to the semifinals would eventually break through in the music industry, including Tori Kelly, Lauren Daigle and Tasha Layton.

Paula Abdul did not return to the judges panel, having announced in the beginning of August 2009 that she was leaving the show due to unresolved contract negotiations.

[7] Victoria Beckham, Mary J. Blige, Shania Twain, Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, Joe Jonas, Neil Patrick Harris, and Kristin Chenoweth were brought on as guest judges during the auditions.

[12] Ellen DeGeneres confirmed on September 9, 2009, that she would be joining the show as the new permanent fourth judge for the rounds held at CBS Television City for Hollywood Week and thereafter.

Cowell left the show to begin preparations for an American version of his singing competition The X Factor.

[18] Held at the Kodak Theatre for the second straight year, the first day of Hollywood Week featured the 181 contestants from the auditions round[27] singing solo with the option of playing an instrument.

Starting with twelve women and twelve men, the women and men performed weekly on separate shows, each performing a Billboard Hot 100 song, and on the results show, the bottom two contestants from each group were eliminated from the competition.

[33] Ryan Seacrest was criticized by TheWrap and MSNBC Entertainment for "critiquing the judges’ comments" and becoming more aggressive.

[37] It was speculated that reasons for the decline might have included the pending departure of Simon Cowell and the more unpredictable behavior of Ryan Seacrest.

[38] Michael Slezak of EW stated, "So you’d think by season 9 — during the inconsequential semifinals, no less — it would be easy to brush off the bad judgment of speed-texting tweens, to process the way-too-early exits of Lilly Scott, Katelyn Epperly, and Alex Lambert (plus the sort-of-maybe-too-early ouster of Todrick Hall), and move on.

So why do the ritual killings of the dreams of four indisputably flawed semifinalists feel like they’re part of something bigger, a shifting of the tectonic plates at the core of the Idol universe?"