Editing American Idol (section)

===Finals===
The finals are broadcast in primetime from Los Angeles, in front of a live studio audience (except the [[American Idol season 18|eighteenth season]], due to the [[COVID-19 pandemic]]). From 2002 to 2019 and from 2021 to 2022, the venue was [[CBS Television City]]. Starting in 2023, it changed to Red Studios. The finals lasted eight weeks in the first season. From the second to ninth and fourteenth seasons, the finals lasted eleven weeks. The tenth and eleventh seasons lasted for twelve weeks, while the twelfth season lasted for ten weeks. In the thirteenth season, the finals lasted thirteen weeks. The finals lasted seven weeks in the fifteenth season, and six weeks in the sixteenth season. Each finalist performs songs based on a weekly theme which may be a musical genre such as [[Motown]], [[disco]], or [[big band]], songs by artists such as [[Michael Jackson]], [[Elvis Presley]] or [[The Beatles]], or more general themes such as ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'' number-one hits or songs from the contestant's year of birth. Contestants usually worked with a celebrity mentor related to the theme. From the tenth to twelfth seasons, [[Jimmy Iovine]] was brought in as a mentor for the season. Initially the contestants sang one song each week, but this was increased to two songs from top four or five onwards, then three songs for the top two or three.

The most popular contestants are usually not revealed in the results show. Instead, typically the three contestants (two in later rounds) who received the lowest number of votes was called to the center of the stage. One of these three was usually sent to safety; however the two remaining were not necessarily the bottom two.<ref>{{cite news |last=Maxine Shen |date=May 1, 2009 |title=Adam Really Was in the Bottom 3 |work=New York Post |url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/05012009/tv/adam_really_was_in_the_bottom_3_167038.htm}}</ref> The contestant with the fewest votes was then revealed and eliminated from the competition. A montage of the eliminated contestant's time on the show was played and they gave their final performance (from the fourteenth season onward, the montage and the final performance were dropped). However, in the [[American Idol season 6|sixth season]], during the series' first ever [[Idol Gives Back]] episode, no contestant was eliminated, but on the following week, two were sent home. Moreover, from the [[American Idol season 8|eighth]] to the [[American Idol season 14|fourteenth]] seasons, and the [[American Idol (season 17)|seventeenth season]] onward, the judges may overturn viewers' decision with a "Judges' Save" if they unanimously agreed to. "The save" could only be used once, and only up through the Top 5. In the eighth to tenth and fourteenth seasons, a double elimination then took place in the week following the activation of the save, but in the eleventh and thirteenth seasons, a regular single elimination took place. The save was not activated in the twelfth season and consequently, a non-elimination took place in the week after its expiration with the votes then carrying over into the following week.

The "Fan Save" was introduced in the [[American Idol season 14|fourteenth season]]. During the finals, viewers were given a five-minute window to vote for the contestants in danger of elimination by using their Twitter account to decide which contestant will move on to the next show, starting with the Top 8.