Jan Nieto

During the competition, he offered fellow finalist Ken Dingle—who at the time was based in Baguio City—a place to stay at his house. Dingle, who taught Nieto how to sing in R&B style, resided in the Nieto household even after his elimination. He also volunteered, with the help of his mother, in helping fellow finalist Pow Chavez recover from her asthma during the Women's Semi-Finals.

After months of preparations and recordings, his self-titled debut album was released March 2009 under IndiMusic (label owned by, among others, Ogie Alcasid and Regine Velasquez). Ogie serves as the album Producer, which includes two of his compositions entitled "Sa Puso Ko" and the album's carrier, "Bakit Kailangan Pang Lumayo". Initially thought of as a CD lite (contains 6 songs), Ogie suggested to make it a full album of 10 cuts. Jan co-wrote (with his manager) the lyrics of one of the songs, "Together", which co-Philippine Idol finalist Miguel Mendoza doing the music.

It took nine and a half months after the competition before Nieto got his major break when he signed for GMA Network as part of its musical variety show SOP Rules. He joined Magdangal, who became part of GMA Network a month after Philippine Idol, in the show. Nieto said that it was only then when he felt the effect of his participation in Idol. Beginning the year 2008, he began being managed by Leo Dominguez (who also manages the careers of Ogie Alcasid and Lovi Poe) and Paolo Bustamante (manager of Brad Turvey and one of the writers of Philippine Idol).

Before auditioning for Philippine Idol, he worked as a Customer Marketing Manager for Unilever Philippines where he worked since February 2003. However, he never told anyone that he actually wanted to become a singer.

Jan Kurt Anthony Pasion Nieto (born June 13, 1981) is a Filipino male singer who rose to prominence as one of the runners-up of Philippine Idol in 2006. With the height of 5' 10½" (179 cm) and weighing 165 pounds (74 kg), he was dubbed as the "Hunky Idol" during the competition. He is currently a talent of GMA Network.

The judges often compared Nieto (who studied in Ateneo de Manila University) with fellow finalist Gian Magdangal (who studied in a De La Salle school), calling it "the new Ateneo-La Salle rivalry". They are also compared to the rivalry between Filipino singers Martin Nievera and Gary Valenciano during the 1980s. Entertainment writers even predicted that Nieto and Magdangal would vie for the title.