Some TV critics don't take no for an 'American Idol' answer

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — TV critics just won't take no for an answer.

Well, some of us won't.

Despite the fact Fox's top programming executives started their Television Critics Association news conference by stating categorically that they absolutely, positively would not be saying anything about the "American Idol" judges or producers, not all of us were deterred.

Despite the fact that Fox Entertainment chairman Peter Rice told us up front that, because no contracts have been signed, there was nothing to say, some of us tried to get him and Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly to say something.

And, after a while, it started to become, well, hilarious:

"Can you confirm or deny that Nigel Lythgoe will be rejoining the show as a producer?"

"Again, I said I'm sorry to have to do this, but there are no deals signed for anyone to come onto the show on either side of the camera," said Peter Rice.

"Kara DioGuardi was on the show last year. Do you have a deal with her in place for next season? And if you don't, have you had any discussions with her to talk to her about the fact that there's been much public speculation saying that she will not be with the show next year?"

"As I said before, I'm not going to get into the speculation about it," Rice said, "because it's, it's not fair to everyone that's being speculated about."

"I'm not asking you to talk about her role. I'm saying have you had discussions with Kara about the speculation in the press about her. ... Has she called you and said, 'Hey, I read here that I'm not going to be on the show' "?

"Again, I really appreciate your question," Rice said. "It's not something I'm going to get into. I don't mean to be rude."

(He wasn't.)

And Reilly was clearly enjoying this. As long as we were asking questions they had no intention of answering, it was less time to ask questions they actually might answer.

"Let's keep it going! Let's keep it going!" he joked. "We've got 45 minutes. Come on. Let's go for a record!"

"So you're saying that you have a panel in mind and you're just closing the deals?"

"As I said in the beginning, I'd love to speculate about it or give you information about the ins and outs of what we're doing, and I'm not going to do that."