'Idol's' Kara DioGuardi keeps it to herself

I participated in a conference call on Wednesday with the “American Idol” judge and she was pretty guarded about the stuff I most wanted to know.

She declined to comment on the show without Paula saying, “I really don’t want to speak about Paula’s absence because you can’t really compare Paula and Ellen, they’re completely different and I think they both bring something valuable to the table.”

And forget getting some scoop from her about rumors that Howard Stern is in the running to fill Simon Cowell’s seat next season when the Brit departs.

“Right now that’s a rumor and I don’t really know if I can even speak on it,” she said.

She did dish, just barely, on whether she thinks the shock jock would make a good judge.

“I don’t think he has a musical background or any kind of music anything,” she said. “I think that if you are going to replace Simon you’ve got to have that background. You have to be someone who knows about signing great artists and being a part of their career from the very beginning to the very end.”