Manager: "does not appear" Paula will return for S9

In a story broken by The Los Angeles Times yesterday, Paula Abdul's manager, David Sonenberg, said "it does not appear that she's going to be back on Idol."

Big surprise. Not.

Apparently, Sonenberg claims Fremantle and 19E are being "kind of unconscionable and certainly rude and disrespectful" in not replying to Paula's interest in sticking with the show for a ninth season. This should come as no surprise to Paula, though, as there have been many signs leading up to this point.

First of all, the addition of Kara DioGuardi last August was a punch in the gut to Paula, as she claimed she and Randy were never consulted before Kara was invited on board. During a season of sharing the limelight with Kara, there were stories of Paula pleading with show management to renew her contract while in impromptu meetings in her dressing room, all to no avail.

Also during the show, Paula was most likely not a fan of the headlines Simon Cowell was making for his then-take of $36 million annually from the series, a number that has since been increased exponentially. Paula's puny $2 million per year salary was commonly used as a footnote in these articles, which obviously did not come off looking very good for her. At the completion of the show's eighth season, her contract had still not yet been renewed, but Paula remained optimistic as recently as two weeks ago.

This scenario is something I have seen coming ever since the day Kara was announced as the fourth judge. Season 8 was merely a test run for Kara, and if she did not totally bomb, Paula's spot would be hers for the taking. Since most agree Kara did an average job as judge but she did not blow it, this is apparently good enough for the producers.

Whatever ends up happening, it should be noted that Paula has been a judge on this show for eight years, and without her we would not have had finalists like Trenyce or Leah Labelle, not to mention the countless times Paula's vote was a tiebreaker or at least a counter to Simon's votes in the earlier rounds of the competition.