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Has Simon Cowell built a better Idol?
America will find out starting Wednesday, when Fox's premiere week is dominated by four hours of The X Factor, a big, brassy singing competition owned and operated by the former American Idol judge. Reuniting the genre's biggest star, Cowell, with Idol foil Paula Abdul, the show (Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. ET/PT) trades on the public's affection for the original, even as it tries to distinguish itself amid an increasingly crowded field of singing contests.
It's unlikely the new entry will transform pop culture the way Idol has done. Idol has finished No. 1 in prime-time TV ratings for the past eight years, turning Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and others into recording stars, spawning multiple music competitions on TV and making Cowell, among others, a household name.
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But X Factor already is No. 1 in the United Kingdom (scoring an enormous 65% share of the TV audience for its 2010 finale), where it supplanted American Idol's parent, Pop Idol, and it has created pop stars there.
The tart-tongued Cowell, the show's creator and executive producer, believes the series, which has performed well internationally, will translate well in the United States. He promises a no-holds-barred, behind-the-scenes look at what he hopes will be a star-making machine, but he's leaving it to viewers to discern its uniqueness.
"I think you've just got to discover it for yourself, because it's very difficult for me to put into words why it is different," Cowell says. "The audiences will work out for themselves why.
"In a broader sense, it is what I think is true reality. It's very raw. You're going to see stuff you haven't normally been allowed to see before."
The show's formula is a mix of the familiar and the new in a bold package.
Besides Cowell and Abdul, the show will feature traditional competition elements, such as auditions, eliminations and the crowning of a winner, with twists — including a broader age range for contestants than Idol, auditions conducted in crowded arenas and a huge prize: a $5 million recording contract.
X Factor is faster-paced and edgier than Idol, says executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz, whose FremantleMedia North America produces both shows, the former with Cowell's Syco Television. "Idol is more pure singer. X Factor is more choreographed and produced," she says. "If you look at the performances at the Grammys, X Factor feels more akin to that."
Fox reality TV chief Mike Darnell says viewers will see that X Factor is "extraordinarily different" from Idol. "Idol's more intimate, and this is more loud and variety, with the crowds and everything. It's more of a variety show. … By its nature, it's a campier television show."
In the end, however, the biggest X factor is likely to be Cowell. "As good as this format is, I wouldn't be doing it without Simon," Darnell says.
Others question how different X Factor can be. Sam Armando of ad buyer SMGx acknowledges the unique elements, "but other than that, it's a music contest, just like Idol. It's auditions, acceptance, stuff like that. We've always said if American Idol was going to go on forever, they're going to have to make little changes. … You might have to open up the age, you might have to include groups. It seems like X Factor is taking care of the little edits that maybe Idol would have had to make down the line."
The heavily hyped X Factor comes with high expectations. Most analysts expect it to be a hit, if not the ratings equal of No. 1 Idol, although it does have the benefit of not being up against any other major singing entrant in the fall, when more people are watching television.
It enters a field already jammed with Idol and two NBC hits, The Voice and the Cowell-produced America's Got Talent. NBC has The Sing-Off, too, and cable has entered the genre with shows such as CMT's Next Superstar, Bravo's songwriting competition Platinum Hit, BET's gospel contest Sunday Best and an ABC summer series that followed the Karaoke World Championships USA.
'It's got a shot' to be a hit, Simon says
As with Idol, X Factor should appeal to a broad audience, rather than just a niche sector, Armando says. "I do think it will be a hit," but not as big as Idol, he says. "The only concern is how tired of this type of reality show are audiences getting."
Asked whether X Factor can beat Idol, Cowell says: "If it comes close to what it's done in the U.K., it's got a shot. The public is going to make that decision. All you can do is make the show you want to watch and make it the best."
X Factor could be a double-edged sword for Fox, which in recent years has struggled in the fall, while rising to the top of the network heap in advertiser-coveted young adults during Idol-fueled winter and spring, says Brad Adgate of ad firm Horizon Media.
"I think they're going to have one of their stronger fourth quarters in recent years. But for years, Fox has been careful to run just one American Idol per TV season" to keep the show fresh, he says. "Is this going to create some viewer fatigue? Is this going to have some sort of impact on the prospects of Idol in January? I think that remains to be seen."
X Factor contestants can be as young as 12 with no upper age limit (Idol's range is 15 to 28). Contestants compete in four categories: young males, young females, singers over 30 and groups. For the youngest singers, it's the first shot at a music career. For older singers, this could be the last chance at the big time.
"I was more impressed with the older categories than anybody else, because they bring something other contestants can't bring," Cowell says. "They bring real emotion, there's massive jeopardy, and they're literally singing for their lives."
Abdul adds: "And they've had tremendous setbacks, they've had horror stories and little chances and tastes of success but not quite ever having it. This is do-or-die for them. We were so emotional. We lost it."
The series opens with auditions, as other singing shows do, but they take place in arenas before thousands. Cowell says it creates a different dynamic than he felt on Idol, where there is no audition audience. "When you do auditions in front of an audience, you kind of feel something odd going on behind you. They're very switched on when somebody's good. And you start to hear this murmur, and then suddenly, when they all get it, there's this unbelievable wave behind you. That was kind of a weird experience, but it was fantastic."
That can cut the other way, too.
"They'd boo you when you say no," Abdul says.
Talent matters, but so do personal stories. At the end of the first episode, "there's a raw, edgy story. You don't see these stories very often on reality shows like this," Cowell says. There's also a guy who drops his pants.
As the competition progresses past auditions, singers are winnowed through a boot camp. Eventually, the survivors make it into the four categories, and the judges become mentors, with each getting jurisdiction over one category. The dynamic originated in the U.K. show, but American viewers saw mentoring last spring on The Voice.
Those singers will visit the judges' homes and be advised by them. Joining Cowell and Abdul as judges are top recording executive Antonio "L.A." Reid and singer/dancer Nicole Scherzinger, who won an earlier singing competition show, Popstars, and ABC's Dancing With the Stars.
The U.K.'s Steve Jones hosts. Rihanna and Mariah Carey will be involved in some capacity, but Cowell is keeping the names of other celebrity participants "up my sleeve."
Live shows follow the mentoring, with a combination of fan votes and judges' decisions resulting in eliminations. One winner emerges, taking the $5 million recording contract.
X Factor's finalists might represent a wider range of talent — or lack of it — than Idol's, says MJ Santilli, whose MJ's Big Blog (mjsbigblog.com) follows Idol and now X Factor.
These judges will 'have more control'
"You're going to have contestants get through who may not be as talented. You would never find a really untalented person in the top 12 of Idol, whereas on X Factor, you might have a joke contestant, like a William Hung, who gets into the top 12 or top 16, just because Simon thinks it's funny," she says. At the same time, "there might be a possibility to end up with that (star) pop singer that Idol has problems producing, because the judges have more control and because of the kinds of performances they tend to put on."
Cowell is likely to bring back a harder edge that has been missing from the genre since his departure. The Voice judges are less critical, as is a revamped Idol panel that includes Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. At X Factor's first audition in Los Angeles in May, Cowell seemed back to his razor-sharp self, and Reid was a surprisingly tough critic.
"Simon doesn't do soft. Simon doesn't do cuddly. He believes in being brutally honest. It's always been his trademark," Frot-Coutaz says. "L.A., by the way, is the same. He doesn't do soft and cuddly. He's not tough for the sake of being tough. He's incredibly direct, no fluff. His compliments are as concise as his putdowns. It makes for a show that feels very real. It's a little tougher than Idol. Idol is a warmer show."
An early X Factor promo featured Cowell waking from a nightmare in which he had become a soft and cuddly judge. Asked whether that was a shot at competing shows, he replied tongue-in-cheek, "Not. At. All. … We were trying to show people what it could have been like and obviously what it's not."
After a year and a half away from U.S. television, Cowell says, he is energized by the new series, something many thought was missing during the latter part of his nine seasons on Idol.
"When it's your own show, it's an easier process. You can do whatever you want. It becomes a reflection of your personality. It's definitely more fun," he says. "I had a good time on Idol for years, (but) nine seasons for anyone is a long time."
Abdul, too, who was on Idol's panel for eight seasons, is elated to be on the new show. Cowell says: "If she had a tail, she'd wag it."
Neither Cowell nor Abdul criticizes Idol directly, but they appear happier in their new environs.
"I've been doing this with Simon for a long time. There's a whole different feeling of camaraderie. There's a feeling that I've never felt before, and it's being the sum of all parts," Abdul says. "When you don't operate that way and it's all individual, you don't feel you're a part of something big. You're part of something big, but you're never made to feel that way."
Even before it airs, X Factor has hit some bumps in the road. Cowell replaced judge Cheryl Cole with Scherzinger, who originally was to co-host with Jones. Cole will be seen on the first of the audition episodes, which were recorded during the spring and summer.
"I had my reasons at the time, which was about comfort zones," Cowell says. "If something needs to be changed, you just have to make those decisions. … I do this all the time, and it worked out better than I could have hoped."
In addition, Idol creator Simon Fuller sued Fox, saying he was promised an executive-producer credit and a fee from an earlier legal settlement. Producers have declined to comment.
In the U.K., the show has been a staple of the tabloids. Darnell says the contestants and judges could stir some controversy here, but he's not worried. That's the nature of the show, and Idol has survived its share of hits. Cowell says the show doesn't seek that kind of attention, but he doesn't run from it.
"I'm all about a bit of controversy at the moment," he says. "It's time to have some fun again."
