US will respect Cheryl Cole because she’s a winner

After what feels like a lifetime of speculation, gossip and, let’s face it, carefully positioned PR guff, Cheryl Cole has finally been announced as a judge on the American version of The X Factor.

The castings for Cowell's shows have now become events in themselves. Perhaps they should have a separate show so we can vote them in?

Cole will join Simon Cowell and RnB producer LA Reid on the US show with a contract that's reported to be worth a meagre £500,000. The potential prize for the ambitious Geordie though is far bigger - that her spell on mainstream US TV will launch her solo career in the world’s biggest music market. Already we’ve been told that she will be dropping her surname in future and will now be known as simply "Cheryl". The final stages of the brand development are in play.

Plenty of questions remain, of course. Will American audiences be as charmed by her as we were? Will they be able to understand her? And will the contestants respect her?

In the UK we have witnessed Cole’s unlikely journey from chav princess to nation’s sweetheart. A talent show winner herself (on Popstars: The Rivals), she turned round all our preconceptions when she became an X Factor judge. The knives were out but she proved herself to be smart, empathetic and a match to the crushing put-downs of Cowell and also, a few controversies aside, a good spotter of potential winners.

In America, where they do not know her at all - the magnificence of Girls Aloud, the betrayals of Ashley, the fever of our tabloid obsession - her game is going to have to be slightly different. She is going to have to entertain.

Doubtless she will have to tone down her accent. While America is often charmed by regional British accents they're also not adverse to sticking screen sub-titles underneath them - as happened to Susan Boyle when she was recently interviewed by Piers Morgan (whose questions remained without the benefit of sub-titles). I hope this doesn't mean that she'll start over-using Americanisms though - shoehorning the word "butt" or "highway" into her comments.

The X Factor is best seen as a pop version of WWF wrestling. Most people know and actually don’t care that the whole thing is scripted, formatted and choreographed, they just enjoy the unfolding spectacle. In America this will be amplified even more: Cowell will be the dark lord, she will be the poor talented young singers' guardian angel valiantly standing up to his withering sighs.

As for the respect of the contestants, her own musical career and successes as a UK judge should be enough. Americans hold winners in far higher esteem than we do and as a past talent show winner herself she’ll have plenty of kudos among the hopefuls.

While I don’t think we should be out in Trafalgar Square waving Union Jacks in her honour, as a TV nation we should be proud of her. There are far worse celebrities we could be sending to the US as envoys of UK pop culture and whatever our thoughts about The X Factor game, for the past couple of years she has played it well and been the only genuine person on it.

As well as ambition driving her US move, doubtless the chance to escape Britain has motivated her too. She can re-invent herself there and open herself up to the bigger world of Hollywood. Above everything she can get away from the suffocating relationship she seems to have with the British tabloids - several of whom behave as if they own her. She needs to become bigger than them and there’s only one place she can do that. ·