News Corp.'s (NWS) FOX broadcasts American Idol -- which gets 24 million viewers a show -- but is the judging fair and balanced? The New York Times suggests maybe not so much. That's because a major slip-up by judge Paula Abdul this week revealed that the judges watch rehearsals two hours before the live performances and their comments -- which may influence the public vote on the contestants -- are not spontaneous reactions to the live performances.

This week performers sang two songs but the judges were supposed to withhold their remarks until after the second performance. On Tuesday, Abdul watched one of the contestants, Jason Castro, give one live performance but when asked to offer a comment on it by Ryan Seacrest, she gave her thoughts on two performances -- the second of which she had seen in the rehearsal. When Abdul started talking about that second performance, I thought that she had a few too many before the show.

However, the explanation in the Times makes it clear that she was flustered because Seacrest had initially said that the judges would not comment until the performers had completed both of their songs. However, executive producer Nigel Lythgoe changed things up at the last minute, demanding that Seacrest get the judges to give a quick assessment of the performances after their first song.

Despite her confusion, Abdul was right in her judgment of Castro whose singing has been terrible. But Castro's singing performance and the judges assessment of it seemed to have no influence on the voting because Castro was the first singer sent to safety.

Meanwhile, since American Idol viewership is down this year, it looks like there will be changes if the show comes back next season. Ryan Seacrest publicly speculated that he could be out. And the revelation that judges watch the rehearsals suggests that there may be other aspects of the show that need tweaking. The judging is clearly not fair and balanced. But it doesn't seem to influence voting either.

That leaves the fair and balanced coverage to the Republican propaganda wing of News Corp. -- Fox "News" Network.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in News Corp securities.