Andy DehnartFOX attempts another competition series modeled after American Idol tonight when it debuts The Next Great American Band at 8 p.m. ET. The show will follow Idol‘s format, with auditions tonight followed by a top 12 that will perform and be eliminated one by one after viewers vote. It’s hosted by New Zealand Idol host Dominic Bowden and judged by the Goo Goo Dolls’ John Rzeznik, Sheila E., and Ian Dickson.
Unlike their series Idol but like their show So You Think You Can Dance, the producers are focusing on talent rather than stupidity. As evidence of how much faith FOX has in talent delivering ratings for them, they’ve scheduled it on Friday nights, which FOX executive Mike Darnell tells USA TODAY “are almost completely dead nights. I’d be thrilled with a quarter of the audience Idol gets. But it’s going to take time to build.”
FOX has also not bothered to give the show an actual web site yet; clicking on its name in the “shows” list at fox.com reveals the show’s MySpace page, which says “full site coming soon.” Whether they forgot to launch the new site on the day the show debuts or decided not to spend any money developing it, this–combined with the Friday night time slot–isn’t really great evidence that FOX is has faith in its own series.