TV Notes: Next week’s ‘Idol’ 7 minutes longer

Will Gwen Stefani beat Paul McCartney’s dancing one-legged estranged wife in next week’s battle of the competition series?

Stay tuned Tuesday from 9 to 9:07 p.m.!

After carefully rescheduling “Dancing With the Stars” to get it out of the path of ratings monster “American Idol,” ABC has learned that Fox will expand the “Idol” performance show next week – meaning it will go head-to-head with the first seven minutes of the first “Dancing” results show.

The fourth edition of “Dancing” debuted Monday to its biggest opening audience ever – nearly 22 million viewers – with much of the credit going to the casting of Heather Mills.

Word from Fox is the “Idol” producers wanted the extra seven minutes because they have Stefani on board as a guest “mentor” to the “Idol” competitors as they rehearse their performances of pop tunes.

But she won’t perform her single “The Sweet Escape” until Wednesday’s results show – the traditional night for the guest mentors to sing and plug whatever it is they’re selling.

Channel surfing’s up!

Bruce Springsteen once grumbled about having 57 TV channels, with “nothin’ on.”

Now the average American has nearly double that.

The typical American home received 104 television channels in 2006, according to Nielsen Media Research, up from 61 in 2000. In 1990, the typical number of channels was 33.

The number of channels Americans receive at home is growing faster than the desire to actually watch them.

Last year, viewers watched only 15 percent of the stations available to them for any appreciable length of time; in 2000, they watched 22 percent of what they could surf through, Nielsen said.