What does Ellen add to American Idol?

I am an American Idol fan….I know that it has become cliched lately..becoming more about the “behind-the-scenes” sob-stories as each season, more and more of the world’s supposed “every-day Joe’s” leave behind their mundane world’s of being a waitress at the Waffle House in Huntsville or cleaning Porto-Jons in Peoria, to chase their lifelong dream of becoming the next Beyonce’. Consequently, with every audition in each different city all over America, there are new stories of sadness, overcoming adversity, surviving horrible tragedies or illness, or being paroled just in time to make the audition. It seems each person is trying to out-do the other with whose story is the most gut-wrenching, the most awe-inspiring, in other words, whose story is most commercially viable?