“The greatest thing about this group of 24 is that they’re more ready for this ‘Idol’ experience, I think, than some of the top 24s in the past. For example, there were some kids that we hoped would do well that petered out over the competition in previous years and we would put people through based on how well we thought they would do, which is a lot of pressure to put on somebody,” Connick said. “So this year we decided, ‘Look, let’s put people that we think are more suited to the competition, as opposed to super raw talent that’s not quite ready for this.’ So that’s a big difference and the 24 that we have are very good.”