The sixth season of American Idol premiered on the Fox Broadcasting Company as a two-night, four-hour premiere special on January 16 and 17, and ran until May 23, 2007. Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson returned as judges, and Ryan Seacrest returned as host. A new record of 74 million votes were cast in the finale round, and a new record of 609 million votes were cast in the entire season. Jordin Sparks won the competition, while Blake Lewis was the runner-up.

Contestants were required to be between the ages 16 and 28 on August 6, 2006. Guest judges were used for auditions this season.^[1]

• Jewel, Minneapolis auditions
• Carole Bayer Sager, New York auditions
• Olivia Newton-John, Los Angeles auditions

Auditions were held in the following cities:

Jordin Sparks, this season's winner, originally failed to pass through her audition in Los Angeles,^[9] but later won an audition in Seattle as a reward for winning a local Fox-affiliate-sponsored contest called Arizona Idol.^[10]

The Hollywood rounds of the audition process were held over four days in November 2006 at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles.

The first round consisted of each contestant singing one song a cappella in front of the judges. Contestants were then told whether they were moving on or going home in groups of six. This extended over the first two days.

The second round took place on the second and third days, and consisted of groups of three or four contestants rehearsing and then performing one of nine pre-selected songs. Groups were reviewed and contestants were then judged individually as to whether they were moving on or going home.

The third round took place on the fourth day, where each contestant performed one song from a pre-selected list accompanied by a piano and backup singers. Contestants were again informed of whether they had made the cut or not.

The final round took place at the Pasadena Civic Center on January 14–15, 2007, just before the regional audition shows began airing. Without any further auditioning, the 40 remaining contestants were reduced to 24. In a process taking a whole day, contestants waited in a sitting room until, one by one, they went up to the center's Gold Room. The three judges told them whether they had made it onto the stage show or were cut. The 24 semifinalists were announced on February 14, 2007.

The live show portion of the semifinals began on February 20, 2007, with the names announced on February 14. Starting with 12 women and 12 men, the women and men performed weekly on separate shows and on the result show, the bottom two male and two female contestants were eliminated. The semifinals took place over three weeks, leaving the other six to form the top 12. The females performed on the first night, followed by the males the next night.

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The top 12 finalists were announced on March 8, 2007. As in past years, the top 12 appeared on the annual compilation album while the top 10 participated in the American Idol summer concert tour. Also as in past years, one finalist was eliminated every week, with the exception of the April 25 show, when all contestants were declared safe. As a result, two of the participants were eliminated on the May 2 results program.

• Jordin Sparks (17 at the time of the show) was from Glendale, Arizona, and auditioned in Seattle. She was the daughter of former NFL defensive back Philippi Sparks.
• Blake Lewis (25 at the time of the show) was from Bothell, Washington, and auditioned in Seattle. Claiming to be the city's beatboxing champion, Lewis sampled a hip hop tune to the judges before rendering Seal's "Crazy." He passed the auditions, but Simon commented to him: "you are not as good as you think you are."
• Melinda Doolittle (29 at the time of the show) was from Brentwood, Tennessee, and auditioned in Memphis. She auditioned with "For Once in My Life" by Stevie Wonder and was met with universal praise from the three judges on her vocal ability.
• LaKisha Jones (27 at the time of the show) was from Flint, Michigan, and she performed "Think" by Aretha Franklin at her audition in New York.
• Chris Richardson (23 at the time of the show) was from Chesapeake, Virginia, and auditioned in New York with Leon Russell's "A Song for You." During Richardson's audition, Randy Jackson compared him to Justin Timberlake.
• Phil Stacey (29 at the time of the show) was from Jacksonville, Florida, and auditioned in Memphis. He missed the birth of his daughter to audition.^[11] He performed two songs before going through to Hollywood: "My Girl" and "Let's Get It On."
• Sanjaya Malakar (17 at the time of the show) was from Federal Way, Washington, and auditioned in Seattle with his sister Shyamali, singing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours." Simon commented that he had a better voice than his sister. Both made it to Hollywood, but Sanjaya was shown tearfully embracing his sister when he made it to the top 40 in Hollywood and she did not.
• Haley Scarnato (24 at the time of the show) sang "I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt during her audition.
• Gina Glocksen (22 at the time of the show) was from Naperville, Illinois, and auditioned in Memphis. She originally auditioned in the fifth season and made it to Hollywood, but she was cut before the top 40.
• Chris Sligh (28 at the time of the show) was from Greenville, South Carolina, and auditioned in Birmingham with "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal, after which Paula Abdul gave him a standing ovation and stated, "I like you very much."
• Stephanie Edwards (19 at the time of the show) was from Savannah, Georgia, and auditioned in Memphis.
• Brandon Rogers (29 at the time of the show) was from North Hollywood, California, and auditioned in Los Angeles. After hearing his audition, the judges, including guest judge Olivia Newton-John, were impressed with his vocals. Simon Cowell later mentioned he was the best audition in Los Angeles.

There were eleven weeks of finals with twelve contestants competing. One contestant was eliminated every week based on the public's votes, with the exception of the top 6 week, where one week featured a non-elimination and the following week a double-elimination.

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On the April 3 show, Ryan Seacrest announced the first American Idol songwriting contest. Following an open online submission process, where over 25,000 submissions were received, twenty songs were selected for competition by Simon Fuller and A&R representatives of 19 Entertainment. Beginning on May 2, 2007, and ending on May 8, 2007, with "one online vote per fan", the American public were able to listen to snippets from each song and rate them on the American Idol website. On the May 22 show, the two finalists performed the winning song: "This Is My Now". The song was released as a single by Jordin Sparks.^[12]

The titles of the twenty songs were:^[13]

There was controversy surrounding the judges' comments over the audition of a Special Olympics participant named Jonathan Jayne.^[14] American Idol producer Ken Warwick responded by saying: "It's not a conscious decision, It's just that the further we go in the series, there are less and less good singers, so the numbers are made up by more bad ones." Warwick said that he thinks everyone has the right to audition, and added that in some instances when there are singers with certain disabilities who just want to meet the judges, the producers will "turn the cameras off and bring them in. We give them a good experience."^[15]

A series of provocative photos surfaced on the Internet of sontestant Antonella Barba.^[16]

On Tuesday, April 17, 2007, the day after the Virginia Tech massacre, while Chris Richardson and Ryan Seacrest were discussing the shooting after Chris's critique, Simon Cowell apparently appeared to be rolling his eyes at the incident, when he was actually speaking to Paula Abdul and did not hear what Chris had said. On the results show the next day, Cowell stated: "I may not be the nicest person in the world, but I would never, ever, ever disrespect those families or those victims, and I felt it was important to set the record straight." To clear Cowell's name, a video was shown on the result show which showed Cowell and Abdul talking with an inset of Chris and Seacrest discussing the shooting. Additionally, Seacrest began the performance show by acknowledging what had happened the day before.

Unlike previous seasons, the top 12 compilation album did not come out while the show was airing. The top 12 recorded studio versions of each of the songs they sang on the show. The songs were available for purchase on AmericanIdol.com as digital downloads through the night of the finale.^[39]

Originally, a collage of the finalists' head shots from the top 24 photo shoot was used as album art on AmericanIdol.com, with the title American Idol 6: Greatest Moments; at present, the covers of Sparks' and Lewis' EPs are used instead. The American Idol: Season 6 – "Greatest Hits" & "The Collector's Edition" were eventually released on June 12, 2007. This was the only season where the season's collection was not distributed by Sony BMG/RCA Records.

Sparks' first non-American Idol single was the top hit "Tattoo", which received platinum certification. Her second single was the Billboard Hot 100 number three hit "No Air" with Chris Brown. The song went to number one in several countries, and also topped Billboard's Pop Airplay chart. "No Air" had been certified platinum in April. It stands as the bestselling single by any American Idol contestant. Sparks released a third single off her album, "One Step at a Time", which peaked at number 17. "One Step at a Time" so far sold over a million copies and is certified platinum. Sparks released her second album Battlefield in July 2009. The album's title track became Jordin's fifth top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 10. This made Jordin Sparks the only American Idol contestant to have their first five singles become Top 20 Hits.

Blake Lewis's first single was "Break Anotha!", which failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. His second single, "How Many Words", also failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Shortly afterward, Lewis confirmed that he had been dropped by Arista records. His album sales were just over 300,000. The drop also cancelled his apparent plans for a third single release.

"This Is My Now," as performed by Jordin Sparks, was released as a radio single. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 15.

• American Idols LIVE! Tour 2007