New American Idol Judge Kara DioGuardi Debuts

Kara DioGuardi is the lady with the magic pen having written hit songs for artists such as Pink, Kelly Clarkson, David Archuleta, Carrie Underwood and The Pussycat dolls. According to Wikipedia Kara DioGuardi songs have been featuring on albums that have sold over 100 million copies.

American Idol is not Kara DioGuardi's first gig as a music judge as she was part of the ABC disaster The One: Making a Music Star which was canceled after two weeks. Kara DioGuardi just announced she is engaged to Mike McCuddy. For you political types Kara father is former Republican Rep. Joseph J. DioGuardi

Reprinted from The Five Ws

NY Daily News writes:

DioGuardi has plenty of fans who may not even know they are. She's one of the most commercially savvy - some say, shrewdly cynical - songwriters in current female pop. In the past few years, she has penned hits for Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Hilary Duff, Ashlee Simpson and more. Not coincidentally, she also has penned songs for former "AI" winners David Cook, Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson.

The insertion of a fourth judge has been seen as a necessary tweak for this aging, yet still superpowered, brand. Last year, "Idol" suffered a ratings drop, from an average of nearly 30 million viewers per week to 28 million. Yet that was still enough to not only beat every other show on TV but to surpass its nearest competition ("Dancing With The Stars") by more than 50%.

DioGuardi, 38, grew up a child of privilege in Scarsdale, Westchester County. Later, she attended prestigious Duke University. DioGuardi started off her career as an editorial assistant at Billboard magazine. Ironically, she gave her first song demo to Paula Abdul, back in 1998 when that star was still a performing artist herself. The two formed an alliance and went on to co-author DioGuardi's first recorded song, "Spinning Around," cut by Kylie Minogue in 2000.