Simon Says Yes to "Idol"
Mon Jul 7, 8:15 PM ET Add Entertainment - E! Online to My Yahoo!
By Joal Ryan
Beware American Idol hopefuls: Simon is coming back.
The tart-tongued, T-shirted man in black has inked a new deal with Fox that will keep him slicing and dicing Idol contestants for the next three years, the network announced Monday.
In a statement, Simon Cowell said he was "absolutely thrilled" with the pact.
Of course, he was. In an apparent exchange for Cowell committing to Idol, Fox committed to Cowell, helping him set up a production company, simcow ltd.
Under the agreement, Cowell's simcow will go to Fox first when it comes up with any bright ideas--like, say, Cupid, the new dating show not debuting Wednesday on Fox. (The show, and Simon's marketable mug, instead will be seen on CBS.)
The Fox announcement seems timed to remind the TV nation that Cowell was its bad boy first.
"Simon Cowell has a unique voice and point of view that obviously resonates all over America. That means we'll have to put up with him for years to come," Fox exec Sandy Grushow said in a tongue-in-cheek (we think) statement.
Cowell, 43, is the first Idol judge to be formally seated for the new season, which launches in January.
PLEASE NO MORE RANDY and PAULA
Prior to Monday's announcement, the crafty Cowell played coy about his future with the singing competition.
"I've got other things I want to do," he said in Monday's Los Angeles Times. "The show is a six-month commitment, and [coming back] will depend on whether we can make the right deal. Right now, it's up in the air."
Before Idol, and its U.K. forerunner, Pop Idol, Cowell made money, but presumably scored fewer phone numbers, as a behind-the-scenes music exec.
In an interview with the Times, Cowell said the best thing about the exposure afforded by the show is that network execs now take him seriously.
"Within the next 48 months, I fully expect to have two or three shows on the air. Definitely," Cowell told the newspaper.
For now, he has one: Cupid. The show takes a Bachelorette premise (one single gal in search of a single guy) and puts an Idol spin on it (viewers get to determine which single guy is the most suitable). Its Vanilla Coke-pitching executive producer appears onscreen briefly, but does not host--that duty is left to MTV's Brian McFayden.
Minus Cowell, Fox's pint-sized Idol spinoff, American Juniors, is pulling down pint-sized numbers. Juniors is averaging 8.4 million viewers since its June 3 premiere. By comparison, Idol, which concluded its second season with May's Ruben Studdard-sized finale, averaged 21.8 million.
While Juniors' kiddie singers have been spared Cowell's critiques, Pop Idol hopefuls have not been so lucky. Cowell has been jetting to Brittania this summer to continue his dark work on that show.
"We've had some people in today who are on a par with the worst we saw in America," Cowell told TV's Extra in June.
Stateside Idol wannabes can be cut down by Cowell in auditions later this summer. (No dates or locations announced yet for those cattle calls.)
Idol premiered on Fox on June 11, 2002, en route to resurrecting nice-judge Paula Abdul (news)'s fame quotient, establishing cool-judge Randy Jackson's "Yo, dog" coolness and cementing nasty-judge Cowell's reputation for, um, bluntness.
"Simon is honest, and he doesn't blow steam," first-season Idol champ Kelly Clarkson (news) recently told E! Online. "I hate people that blow steam."
Cowell, meanwhile, is not the only Idol regular to parlay his prime-time fame into well-paid side gigs. Host Ryan Seacrest, currently doing Fox a solid by fronting American Juniors, is signed to star in his own daytime talk show, set to debut in January.