Peter Rice, the new chairman of entertainment for Fox, was looking forward to his first confab with the Television Critics Association. Then Paula Abdul Twittered Tuesday night that she was leaving “America Idol,” and Rice no longer looked forward to the session quite so much. In fact, questions about Abdul did dominate Fox’s state-of-the-network Q&A Thursday.

Rice and Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reillly jumped right in, without being asked, to talk about the situation. Read no further unless you’re unusually interested.

Rice: “Obviously, everybody is aware that Paula will not be returning to Idol, and it’s something that is very saddening to us. I just wanted to take you through a little bit of what’s been happening in the past few months. Paula is the only member of Idol whose contract was up this year, we have been talking to her about it for most of the season — certainly since before I arrived at the company four months ago — and we very much wanted her to return. In the past few weeks, the negotiation has sort of come to a conclusion. We made
an offer that we feel was very fair to Paula. It was a substantial raise on the money she’s been paid in the past, and Paula has decided not to return.”

“It happened only 36 hours ago, so we don’t have big announcements to make on what we’re going to do. We have been focused in the past 24 hours on the auditioning process, which takes place over the next seven weeks, and our intention is to have guest judges at each one of those auditions. We’re talking to people now. There are a couple of people who are confirmed. ” (Victoria Beckham and Katy Perry.) “Our intention is to have the guest judges be female pop stars, female performers, female artists. And between now and January, we will come up with a more permanent solution on what we’ll do. The live shows start in January, so we feel between now and then, we will come up with a solution and a replacement for Paula.”

“I would like to say again we’re very sad that she’s not coming back.
She’s been a very important part of the Idol family. We’re looking forward to the season. I think obviously there’s going to be a different dynamic, and there’s going to be a change this year. There’s also something exciting about that, and we’ll be looking to bring a different element and a different energy to this season.”

Q. Is there any chance of her coming back at all?

Rice: Our understanding is that we’ve concluded the negotiation, and Paula has announced she will not be coming back.

Q. In terms of permanently replacing her and bringing in a fourth judge, it
seemed last year having a fourth judge caused all sorts of logistical problems for the show. It kept running over. The producers didn’t really seem to know how to cut things down. Have you thought at all about just saying ‘We have three judges now. Let’s go with three judges’?

Rice: We’re going to spend between now and January deciding who’s going to judge the show. It’s a live show. That’s what makes it so exciting:

The energy of it. Sitting in the booth at Idol is just an amazing, pulsating piece of energy. And it’s not just that there were four judges. It’s very difficult to put on a live television show. So I think that the four judges were getting in a rhythmlast year, and we will probably have four judges back. (The logistical problem) was something that we had to overcome. And as we got through towards the end of the season, I think we had.

Reilly: And I think the finale was probably the best one we’ve ever done. The finale was unbelievable. Not only did they hit their rhythm, but I thought it was actually an incredible moment for Kara in that show.

Q. In all the research that you do, how do you decide that Ryan Seacrest is worth $15 million a year?

Reilly: We should probably draw a distinction about his deal. Peter, do you want to
just talk about that — the structure?

Rice: That’s been written a lot recently. Ryan is still in his old contract on Idol, and Ryan made a deal with CKX, which encompasses much more than Idol. Ryan is not being paid $15 million a year to be on Idol.

Reilly: He has really built a breadth of a career and wears many different hats and he has that ambition to continue doing it, and that’s what the (new) deal contemplates. Our deal remains in place.

Q. Earlier you said that Paula was the only member of the Idol team whose contract was expiring. Your network put out a release earlier this week that said Kara would be coming back for a second season.

Rice: Well, most all of these contracts have options that get triggered, so the only person whose contract had expired was Paula’s.

Q. In looking for a new judge,might you be looking for somebody who might be a little bit controversial, a little bit high-maintenance, a little bit of a pain in the butt
at times, but overall maybe that’s better for the show in creating buzz?

Rice: What we need to find is someone who has great chemistry. It really is a
casting job. And that person — what is the interaction between the judges? How does that person interact with the talent? We have 24 new cast members
every year come in and out of Idol and they have different relationships with the judges and with Ryan. That’s a very complex piece of producing. … Our job in the next four or five months is to really consider what makes this the most
fun, what’s the most entertaining, what is — what’s great television.