LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- "We think this showdown that's going to happen with 'The Voice' is only going to put more attention on the show, more excitement," FOX Entertainment President Kevin Reilly told reporters about "The X Factor" following the release of its 2012-13 schedule this morning. "And with some of the changes we're going to make to it, creative tweaks and the new judges - that we're hoping we can announce today - I think is going to turn an enormous amount of attention to the show. It's going to be very exciting."
Said judges - widely reported and presumed to be Britney Spears and Demi Lovato - were just one of several topics covered:
-- On what's in store for the Thursday-bound "Glee" next season: "As you know several characters are graduating. We're going to have a show within a show following some of the characters to New York in the School of Performing Arts; a couple of fresh faces in Ohio for the kids," Reilly said. "I'm very excited already about the quality of talent that's looking to join the show." Already on tap for multi-episode arcs: Kate Hudson and Sarah Jessica Parker.
-- "It's a 12-year-old show, it's just natural," Reilly admitted about the current ratings decline of "American Idol." "This season was a bigger drop off than we anticipated. We got caught short because we had a show people loved, we didn't make changes to it. There was no reason to make changes to it and the space got crowded. We didn't create enough urgency to view it at the top."
-- On the revolving door of titles for "The Following," "The Mindy Project" and "Ben & Kate" leading up to today's announcement: "These are the titles. We like them and they're locked."
-- Reilly affirmed they'll run the Kevin Bacon-led drama "The Following" for 15 weeks straight at midseason, using its postseason NFL coverage as a launch platform. "We think it's our next '24,'" he said about the show, adding "we like this model of trying to work in some shorter order series rather than the 22 template, the one size fits all."
-- On what happened with "The Flintstones": "Unfortunately Seth [MacFarlane] got really jammed up doing his movie. We ran out of real estate. He just wasn't going to get it done. So we gave that up."
-- "We do have challenges in the fall this year with some of the elections and postseason baseball but we are stable on Tuesday straight through the fall, which is a good thing," Reilly said about the double-edged sword that is its MLB package. "We're not going to be on and off." Here's the complete list of affected nights and dates.
-- On if they'll be ordering any more shows for midseason: "I don't think so," he said. "We're always going out of cycle. We rolled a couple of scripts that we liked that we could shoot over the summer... We've got our needs covered right now. We'll go back, there's one or two things we're still looking at and maybe there's one or two that end up getting shot out of cycle."
-- On the cancellation of "Terra Nova": "This year we introduced some good shows. A number of them could have come back, would have come back in weaker years and on weaker schedules."
-- And finally after the call, we confirmed with a network spokesperson that "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Q'Viva: The Chosen" - FOX's two remaining bubble shows - have indeed been canceled.
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