News Corp Using 'Idol' to Revive MySpace

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- News Corporation(NWSA) is hoping that some of its American Idol magic will rub off on its social networking site, MySpace.

Fox's American Idol is partnering up with MySpace in hopes to breathe life back into the deflated social site.

As Ryan Seacrest announced on last year's season finale of Idol, an online audition is now available on MySpace. From Sept. 15 through Oct. 6, singers ages 15 to 28 can submit their audition videos on MySpace and possibly be selected to advance to the American Idol callbacks in Los Angeles. Once all the online audition videos are submitted, producers will view at least 35,000 of them before picking those that they want to advance to the show.

The hit show is gearing up for its tenth season without two of its original judges, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell. For months its highly publicized search for a judging panel has been drawing a lot of attention.

>>American Idol Judges: The Latest on the Search

MySpace was ranked as the most popular social networking site in the nation in 2006, but was beaten out by Facebook in 2008 according to data from comScore. While it still remains a close second to Facebook, News Corp hopes to revive MySpace and gain back its respect in the social networking scene.

This isn't the first time Fox teamed up with MySpace to promote one of its shows. Last spring it received 34,000 audition submissions for a Glee casting call. The videos racked up 23 million views.

-- Written by Theresa McCabe in Boston.

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