Didn't see a topic for this, so might as well start one. Today the final judge was named, and it's familiar to fans of Idol:
Judges/Mentors:
LA Reid
Simon Cowell
Cheryl Cole
Paula Abdul
Co-hosts: Nicole Scherzinger and Steve Jones(British)
Season one of the US version begins September 2011 with both Cheryl and Simon leaving the British version to be judges and mentors on the US show.
Live Auditions begin shooting in LA May 8th, 2011. The winner will receive a recording contract in addition to 5 million dollars paid out over 5 years.
Format rumored to follow the UK and Aussie versions:
(1) Audition round to cut the contestants down to a couple hundred
(2) Bootcamp round similar to American Idol's Hollywood Week meant to reduce the numer of finalists to 24-32. The 32 will be comprised of 4 groups. One group of women 25 and younger. One group of men 25 and younger. One group for group acts. And finally one group consisting of artists over the age of 25.
(3) Judges Home round. Producers of the show assign one of the four groups to one judge. Those 6 (or 8) artists go to the Mentor's home and sing one last time. The mentor is accompanied by a famous artist to help the mentor decide which 3 artists to move along to the live round for a total of 12 finalists, plus 4 wildcards.
(4) Live round. The mentors chosen finalists have their songs picked by their mentor as well as receive advice on staging etc. America will vote each week, and the person or group with the lowest number of votes is gone on results night. The two lowest vote getters after that sing-off and the judges decide who goes home. If they stalemate, the vote tally is used to decide. The automatic kick appears to only apply in weeks 1 and 2, and then in the round immediately prior to the semi-final round.
Similar to American Idol, the UK version of X Factor has had issues with calculated efforts by voters to keep the worst artist(s) alive for as long as possible.
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Originally Posted by Jarod M /forum/post/21575969
He hired Nicole as a HOST-someone who would look pretty and read off a teleprompter. The switch to mentor happened after the show had already started production.
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We don't know what was going on behind the scenes and who was actually calling the shots. Ultimately network executives are to blame much of the time.
Poor Simon getting pushed around by the network bullies!
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Simon might have been responsible for most of the decisions, but undoubtedly he had to compromise, which is what I think happened to Cole when network executives objected because they felt the show wasn't "American" enough.
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Originally Posted by sneals2000 /forum/post/21576798
Not a surprise. He's not a big name in the UK - and hasn't had any real success here.
The real question is why Simon didn't take Dermot O'Leary (the current UK host of The X Factor) to the US ? He's a much warmer, wittier host than Steve - and hugely more experienced live.
Presumably they'll go with a US host next season?
The UK does have a good track record for generating very experienced live entertainment TV presenters (we had a LOT of high profile, live kids TV shows in the 80s through to the 00s that generated a huge number of very experienced, still quite young, live TV presenters - and we still have a LOT of live non-news/non-sport TV on-air here)
So you really think that the sacking of Cheryl Cole was initiated by Simon? Simon, who had already hired her for the British version and knew exactly what to expect from her on the show? And then replacing her with an unknown quantity who he would later mock and deride for not doing her job?
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Originally Posted by Jarod M /forum/post/21579528
So you really think that the sacking of Cheryl Cole was initiated by Simon? Simon, who had already hired her for the British version and knew exactly what to expect from her on the show?
Yes. In Simon's own statements after the Cole deal went bad in a very public way, he admitted that firing her from the US show was his decision.
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Originally Posted by zap2it.com /forum/post/0
After all the drama over casting the judges for FOX's upcoming "The X Factor," judge and producer Simon Cowell tells Zap2it he may have been wrong about axing Cheryl Cole and takes the responsibility.
Cole, a wildly popular singer in the U.K. and a judge on the show there, was initially in the line-up for the American version of the singing contest debuting Sept. 21.
"I worked with her for years in the U.K., and she was sensational," he says. "We shot a couple of days, and I just had a feeling -- and I was probably wrong - and I think she would disagree with this. And I thought she would be more comfortable on the U.K. show, and we spoke to her."
"Initially she agreed to it, and we were way into a negotiation," Cowell says. "And it all went public and it all went horribly wrong. And she was offered to come back to the show. And she didn't want to go on that. It was one of those decisions you have to make as a producer."
I'm well aware of what he said. And I still say there is NO WAY that he was the one who INITIATED the call for a change. What do you expect him to say, that some network pinhead felt the show was too foreign for Midwest audiences, and that Cole would have to go as a result? Simon plays the game. He was doing so in all of his quotes about American Idol for a while, until Simon Fuller sued him, that is.
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Nicole had previously joined Simon Cowell as a guest judge on "The X Factor" (UK version) in 2010.
And he liked her enough that he gave her the hosting job. And yet not for one second during this entire season did I think that he liked the job that she was doing.
I don't believe that getting rid of Abdul was Simon's idea either. It doesn't make much sense to remove her considering the other changes that were being made. It was a surprising move when he brought her back, she performed far better than she ever had on Idol, and then he fires her?
So Simon 100% willingly replaced Cheryl Cole with someone who wouldn't even be around much of the time?
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Another time, Francis says, "Simon came over to me and said 'Stacy, this is Nicole; Nicole, this is Stacy.' I think that was his way of saying that he wanted her spending more time there.'
The more we find out about this, the more that this reeks of network interference.
And I wouldn't be surprised if Pepsi has a say in the decision making, especially if they have another 50 million dollar deal for this next season with X Factor.
Of course not. Simon never makes mistakes. When he admits he's made mistakes, obviously there's a gun being held to his head.
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What do you expect him to say, that some network pinhead felt the show was too foreign for Midwest audiences, and that Cole would have to go as a result?
No, I'd expect him to tell the truth which he has a notorious reputation of doing. I doubt he worries about the feelings of faceless network pinheads.
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I don't believe that getting rid of Abdul was Simon's idea either. It doesn't make much sense to remove her considering the other changes that were being made. It was a surprising move when he brought her back, she performed far better than she ever had on Idol, and then he fires her?
I believe that if Simon had wanted to keep Paula, she would still be on his show.
I don't believe Simon has become a puppet of the Fox network doing their bidding and rubber stamping their ideas to make them happy. If he is then his credibility in the American entertainment business has drastically fallen in the past year and I wouldn't expect to see this show on Fox for more than another season.
EVERYONE, unless you're a studio CEO or named Stephen Spielberg, has to worry about the feelings of faceless network pinheads when a substantial amount of money is involved. And often they aren't so faceless. Just ask David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and Howard Stern about network pinheads. And if you actually believe that Simon tells the absolute truth, then I have to question how much of American Idol and The X Factor you have actually watched. On The X Factor especially he would often completely contradict something that he said the previous week.
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I believe that if Simon had wanted to keep Paula, she would still be on his show.
At what cost? Pepsi withdrawing their 50 million because they would rather have Mariah Carey in that chair?
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I don't believe Simon has become a puppet of the Fox network doing their bidding and rubber stamping their ideas to make them happy. If he is then his credibility in the American entertainment business has drastically fallen in the past year and I wouldn't expect to see this show on Fox for more than another season.
Yeah, because Fox is known as a hands off company who puts complete trust in their talent. Just like how the heads of the company had no idea that their newspaper people were involved in illegal hacking. Believe what you will.
Even if Simon Cowell was financing the show out of his own pocket, he would still have to compromise with certain entities. The network, the sponsors, and even other people in his production company all have a say in this.
1/ noisy, flashy, over produced theatrics. Try to entertain people, not induce seizures!
2/ the mentoring system destroys any smidgen of objectivity and brings out the worst in the judges. Simon is more full of himself and condescending than ever. If he thinks Paula and Nicole are such idiots, why did he hire them? Since they were going to be there for the season, he could've treated them with some modicum of civility.
3/ the talents were ill served by the infighting judges and dumb ass guidance from their mentors.
4/ the show actually made me miss AI's genial inanity.
Yes - it's on ITV2 and ITV2 HD over here. Didn't have the same feel as the UK show - but the UK show has earned its position (though the gloss came off a bit this year) For the first time in a couple of years, Strictly (aka the original DWTS) beat it a few times in the ratings.
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Originally Posted by Jarod M /forum/post/21582147
Yeah, because Fox is known as a hands off company who puts complete trust in their talent. Just like how the heads of the company had no idea that their newspaper people were involved in illegal hacking. Believe what you will.
So you base this feeling on something that happened in a completely separate division of News Corp? Believe what you will indeed!
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Even if Simon Cowell was financing the show out of his own pocket, he would still have to compromise with certain entities. The network, the sponsors, and even other people in his production company all have a say in this.
So you think the networks and the sponsors are conspiring to knock Simon's highly rated show off the air if he doesn't do exactly what they tell him to do?
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Originally Posted by scowl /forum/post/21586708
So you think the networks and the sponsors are conspiring to knock Simon's highly rated show off the air if he doesn't do exactly what they tell him to do?
Once the initial ratings came in and it was obvious that it wouldn't ever pull in those 20 million viewers, Simon's bargaining power dropped. The budget is too large on this show to generate tons of profit with only "very good" ratings.
No, I don't believe it. When has any "in front of the camera" person made that kind of money from a tv show? The biggest seem to top out at around 50 million a year. And this is a tv show that is only on for half of a typical season. He might have made her an offer, but it is for WAY less than that. Plus, how much is Beyonce really worth? Her last album bombed without any top ten singles. She might have more musical credibility than J-Lo, but look at how American Idol foolishly gave J-Lo 20 million dollars this year, only to have the ratings fall off a cliff.
Sounds like Simon thought he could put anyone he wanted in the judges seats and it would be an automatic hit. Learned the hard way in both the UK and the US that it doesn't work that way. No one he put up, including himself, was more interesting or watchable than what we also get on The Voice. Will be interesting to see how he fills the two empty seats going forward.
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Originally Posted by skyehill /forum/post/21589895
Sounds like Simon thought he could put anyone he wanted in the judges seats and it would be an automatic hit. Learned the hard way in both the UK and the US that it doesn't work that way. No one he put up, including himself, was more interesting or watchable than what we also get on The Voice. Will be interesting to see how he fills the two empty seats going forward.
I'm not sure it will matter who is in the seats if the production quality and sound is not changed. The show was unwatchable at times and most of the time it had nothing to do with the judges.
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Originally Posted by rrainwater /forum/post/21589902
I'm not sure it will matter who is in the seats if the production quality and sound is not changed. The show was unwatchable at times and most of the time it had nothing to do with the judges.
Agreed. I could get by lousy judges if the show is watchable. The sad thing is that's exactly what Simon wants. He tells the crowd to never shut up and to boo and hiss while the mentors are talking. It's just all so ugly.
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Originally Posted by rrainwater /forum/post/21589902
I'm not sure it will matter who is in the seats if the production quality and sound is not changed. The show was unwatchable at times and most of the time it had nothing to do with the judges.
Worst audio mixing quality of any performance show so far on TV. Just dreadful.
Of course there were also a lot of screaming fans in the arena to contend with..., especially during the "high notes" when the background noise to the viewer became intolerable.
Not to mention the staging which placed the truly amateur competitors standing still, right in the middle of a "cast of thousands" of background singers, musicians, and dancers. IT WAS RIDICULOUS LOOKING AND SOUNDING!
Simply and completely an entirely bad idea, all around. Everything about this show did NOT work right. Have I personally ever been so offended and angry at what was put in front of me to watch and listen to? I don't think so.
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Originally Posted by Jarod M /forum/post/21589693
No, I don't believe it. When has any "in front of the camera" person made that kind of money from a tv show? The biggest seem to top out at around 50 million a year. And this is a tv show that is only on for half of a typical season. He might have made her an offer, but it is for WAY less than that. Plus, how much is Beyonce really worth? Her last album bombed without any top ten singles. She might have more musical credibility than J-Lo, but look at how American Idol foolishly gave J-Lo 20 million dollars this year, only to have the ratings fall off a cliff.
I don't believe the numbers either (in fact, I don't believe ANY so called 'leaks' when it comes to this show - it is the most overtly manipulatve show I have ever seen - to the point of being insulting). One thing to keep in mind, though, is that while it is only on for half a season, there were still 26 shows that aired, many of which were two hours. The amount of commercial time available to be sold is much higher than a standard 22 episode full-year show.
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Originally Posted by rsambuca /forum/post/21590287
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that while it is only on for half a season, there were still 26 shows that aired, many of which were two hours. The amount of commercial time available to be sold is much higher than a standard 22 episode full-year show.
No repeats to air though-That is a lot more revenue for a show during the year, depending on the show. Some shows still do surprisingly well on their second showing-a lot better than when they go to syndication, where there is still plenty of money to be had.
It appears the rumors are all over the place right now for who the replacements will be. My guess is that one of the replacements will be a big name, and the other will be someone who actually has something to offer. Again, they'd better be paying attention to what is going on at Idol and not blindly offer the job to a high profile celebrity who is going to have nothing else to offer the show.
I think Shania Twain would be a solid choice-big name, likeable, and would attract positive attention from the Red States where I suspect X Factor does the worst. The thing is, I suspect she doesn't want to sign up for one of these shows full time, or she'd already be on one.
Mariah Carey was mentioned, however, Nick Cannon poo pooed that on his radio show .. as well, Whitney Houston .. which would be kind of nice, IMO .. she's got the background, she's been at the top and has had to deal with some issues .. done pretty well as an actress and singer ..and would likely be quite honest with her opinion as well as not being intimidated easily ..
We should have some fun on the thead and each list who they should pick to replace .. me .. I'd go with
Tom Petty
Don Henley
Carole King
Neil Young
Phil Spector
Any of which would actually have an opinion and have no second thoughts about going head to head with Simon .. and none of which would have a snowballs chance in hell of getting hired .. but they would be damned good judges / mentors ..
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