The tenth season of the series premiered on January 19, 2011 on Fox. Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler joined Randy Jackson this season as judges. This season Jimmy Iovine, chairman of the Interscope Geffen A&M Records group, the new partner of American Idol, will be the in-house mentor with no weekly guest mentor, with other significant changes promised. Nigel Lythgoe returned as executive producer.
Season ten was the first to include online auditions. Contestants could submit a 40 second video audition via Myspace, between September 15 and October 10, 2010. The rules are otherwise the same and the online auditions will be judged in a similar fashion to the live auditions.
