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Simon Cowell to leave American Idol

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Dec 29, 2003
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Simon Cowell Confirms He’s Leaving ‘American Idol’

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Simon Cowell, the music impresario and tough-talking “American Idol” judge you love to hate, will leave “American Idol,” the Fox reality competition, after the current season, he said on Monday. Mr. Cowell made the announcement during a Fox presentation at the Television Critics Association press tour in California. Though there had been speculation about Mr. Cowell’s status with the show for several weeks, he said that he had only formally reached an agreement with Fox “at half-past-10″ this morning to bring another reality series, “The X Factor,” to the network next year. Mr. Cowell said he would leave “American Idol” to focus on that show.
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For those that don't know X Factor is simply an Idol rip-off with one small difference. Thanks to the judges choosing between the publicly-voted bottom two acts each week it means Cowell and Fuller earn just as much money off the gullible viewers whilst being able to manipulate even more easily who they want to win.

Expect lots of sob stories about how the contestants were all bullied at school (yawn), lots of tears (mostly from the guys) and other scripted shyte.
 
Well that leaves Idol pretty much dead. I expect Cowell will have Abdul as a judge on X Factor and rebuild the hype from there.

What's the difference between X Factor and American Idol anyway? Other than the fact that Cowell owns X Factor?

Edit: Ahh. Read the post above me ^.
 
Queso said:
Cowell co-owns X Factor with Simon Fuller, who owns American Idol.
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Are you sure? It's not listed in the Wikipedia entry for either Fuller or X Factor. In fact, it looks like Fuller sued Cowell over X Factor copying Idol. The only thing they share is their distributor, Fremantle Media.
 
jaw04005 said:
Are you sure? It's not listed in the Wikipedia entry for either Fuller or X Factor. In fact, it looks like Fuller sued Cowell over X Factor copying Idol. The only thing they share is their distributor, Fremantle Media.
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Cowell and Fuller co-created Idol. Simon sold his rights to Fuller.
 
Idol v. X Factor

The differences between Idol and XF go beyond who owns the rights, as a fan of both formats, I must say that XF has the edge. Firstly because there's more variety in the acts.. Groups, duo's etc are all allowed and the age requirments are much less strict (16+ I think) which makes for a more diverse range of acts in my honest opinion. But what really makes XF is the fact that each judge takes responsibility for a specific set of acts and mentors them throughout the process which for me makes the judges more relevant as they have more of a vested interest in the acts they're judging and makes for some entertaining banter between them instead of the usual feedback you get on Idol..
Just my two cents!.. I'm looking forward to XF US!
 
I've heard he was leaving so many times that I'm beyond caring anymore.
Not that I did in the first place
 
Poor Simon. He won't have his $50 million a year contract anymore.

All the same, Idol will probably fade to a distant rating and then get axed within four or five years after he's gone.
 
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