NEW IDOL JUDGES TO BE ANNOUNCED ON WEDNESDAY

In what some writers have suggested will be as forced, awkward and anticlimactic as one of those American Idol finales in which a seeming also-ran is crowned the winner, Fox TV is set to announce the names of the judging panel for next season on Wednesday. For weeks writers have indicated that it is all but certain that Jennifer Lopez and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler will replace Simon Cowell and Ellen DeGeneres, while Randy Jackson will remain. There will be no fourth judge to replace Kara DioGuardi. But the producers could be planning a surprise. Only about two weeks ago, exective producer Nigel Lythgoe told the New York Times that he was still hoping to sign Elton John as a judge, although, he acknowledged, “I don’t believe negotiations have gone well.”