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TV mogul Simon Cowell takes The X Factor to US
Fox TV deal means he will give up his judge’s seat on American Idol
Talent show mogul Simon Cowell is set to become the most dominant man in worldwide television by taking The X Factor - the show he produces, owns the format rights to and appears on as a judge - to America. The programme is already shown in 17 countries, giving it a global audience of more than 500 million. Yesterday he signed a deal with Fox TV to launch it in the US next year.
As a result, he is quitting as a judge on the number one US television TV show American Idol. "What we have agreed is that The X Factor will launch in America in 2011 with me judging the show and executive producing," he told a press conference in Los Angeles on Monday. "Because of that, this will be my last season on American Idol this year."
Already paid $36m a season to judge Idol, Cowell is reported to have turned down a big pay rise offered by the other Simon - Simon Fuller, the creator of American Idol - to stay at Idol. But the chance to recreate The X Factor in the mega US market, and perhaps begin to catch up with Fuller's equally mega earnings, swayed him.
According to the latest Sunday Times Rich List, Cowell has collected £120m from his various TV enterprises - but Fuller's fortune is closer to £300m.
Cowell's move raises two big questions bound to exercise the US entertainment media over coming weeks: who will replace Cowell on American Idol? And will Cowell take any of his British X Factor line-up with him to the States, or find an all-American threesome to sit alongside him there?
He will be a hard act to follow on Idol where his put-downs to American contestants are legendary, even winning him a name-check from Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. "I'm tempted to ask if you sang the night before your wife left you," he told one contestant. "You have just invented a new form of torture," he said to another.
As for The X Factor line-up, he is said to have told Cheryl Cole, the Girls Aloud singer who has become a popular judge on the British show, that she should be aiming to break into US television. This could be her chance. ·
