With ‘X Factor’s’ Cheryl Cole flap, is Simon Cowell up to his old shenanigans?
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Most shows don’t start pouring on the PR antics until just before premiere. But the Cheryl Cole flap proves that Fox’s ‘The X Factor’ isn’t about to play by those stupid old rules.
‘The X Factor’ won’t start until the fall, but TV reporters have already spent the past few weeks as producer Simon Cowell’s personal yo-yos. British songbird Cole was supposed to join Cowell, Paula Abdul and veteran hit-maker L.A. Reid at the judges’ table. Then, Cole was out, for reasons no one could quite articulate (among the options: her accent was hard to understand; she didn’t have good chemistry with Abdul; she was too emotionally fragile). Now, she might be back! Maybe. A new round of reports this weekend indicated that she was applying for a U.S. visa in anticipation of a possible return.
Oh, what will happen if this person most Americans have never heard of doesn’t show up for the taping of a singing contest that isn’t even on the air?
Perhaps it’s cynical to say such things. But speaking of cynicism: Note that since the Cole affair started, neither Fox nor the producers have been willing to say anything on the record. Not even: ‘We wish Cheryl the best in her future endeavors.’
More to the point, the British version of ‘X Factor’ is notorious for stunts, hokum and contrived controversy. A member of the group G4, which found fame on the show, later dismissed the judges’ on-air bickering as ‘pure pantomime’ and called ‘X Factor’s’ endless publicity stunts ‘silly.’
And yet, in Britain the show keeps getting bigger, with last year’s cycle the most-watched yet. Clearly, Cowell knows how to stir the pot.
The question is whether his brand of media carpet-bombing will work this time. The U.S. TV market is a lot bigger and more chaotic than in the U.K. And there’s a risk that Americans might be turned off by a show that looks like a big, over-orchestrated media con before it even premieres. (Already, ‘X Factor’ is being beaten out by scripted series such as Fox’s ‘Terra Nova’ in want-to-see polls.)
But this is Simon Cowell we’re talking about. So this is just the first shot in a war that’s going to last a long, long time.
Trackers, what do you think of the Cole controversy?
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-- Scott Collins (twitter.com/scottcollinsLAT)
