That's part of a push to emphasize the show's dream-making, aspirational aspects. But that doesn't mean Cowell and Co. won't still have opportunities to be mean.

"The truth of the matter is, if I sort of set up this incredible system where all the bad ones never got seen, I'd have a pretty boring show in my hands," executive producer Ken Warwick said. "And it wouldn't be honest."

"We will continue in the way that we've always done," Cowell said. "Which is, in the main, we've tried to have a sense of humor over the whole process. The show is not an inherently mean show. It is an American dream show. The whole purpose of the show is to find somebody — it could be a cocktail waitress like Kelly Clarkson — who through the process becomes a star.

"I've always thought it was important to show people at home that when bad singers come in and they're not very good, that it's time to give up that type of dream and take a normal job."

This season, "Idol" will also send more semifinalists to Hollywood and spend two weeks (instead of one) on that round of the competition. And there will be a new version of the "wildcard," in which some eliminated singers will be brought back and given a second chance.

(That is, by the way, how Utahn Carmen Rasmussen made it into the finals in Season 2.)

Thirty-six contestants will advance from the Hollywood round. That will be followed by three weeks of competition featuring one-third of those contestants, and three will advance to the finals from each group of 12. Then there will be three wildcard picks by the judges for a total of 12 finalists.

Warwick insisted the changes had nothing to do with the fact that "Idol" was down somewhat in the ratings last season, although it remained far-and-away the most-watched show on TV.

He pointed out that "Idol" was down about 7 percent last season, as compared to 12 percent for network TV as a whole. And that the ratings rebounded for the David Cook-vs.-David Archuleta finale.

"There were no panic changes, I have to say," Warwick said. "It wasn't, 'Oh my (gosh), we've dropped 7 percent, what are we going to do to change the whole show?' This wouldn't have been on the TV for eight years if it wasn't doing it right."

And Cowell, the resident curmudgeon, is supportive of the attempts to tweak the format a bit.

"I wasn't crazy about the process we went through the last couple of years where we were given a small group of contestants who you actually got bored with once you hit about Show 5 of the live shows," he said in a conference call with TV critics. "This way, this is a bit more jeopardy and hopefully a bit more fun in the middle stages."