We had commenter chatter on the site earlier this spring about Simon Cowell not coming back after his current contract on American Idol expires, but of course it was all part of the negotiating process. Cowell and Idol will be around for a long time, making lots of money, and stomping your favorite shows in the ratings. Idol haters, begin the teeth gnashing.
Cowell, who reportedly made $36 million last year for judging the hit competition show, has been offered three or four times that amount — between $100 million and $144 million per year — by co-producers Fox and 19 Entertainment to stick with “Idol” when his contract expires next May, according to The Guardian, a London newpaper.
While $36 million may seem like a lot of money for five months worth of snarky comments and eye-rolls, it’s only a fraction of the estimated $900 million that “Idol” rakes in a year. As the lynchpin of the show — without him there would be no one to hate and no dramatic tension with Paula Abdul — Cowell believes he’s due for a raise.
read the rest at New York Post.
That *IS* a lot of money, and although I’m not a huge fan of the show, I think Cowell deserves it. The show would be a shadow of itself without Simon IMO.
(frankly, I think Paula is also very important as well – she keeps the “buzz” factor up with her zany/wacky comments, especially during the boring top 20 to top 10 shows)
Idol makes $900 million? Wow.
Dump him….the ratings have been dropping anyway + it would freshen up the show.
No Simon = no Show
Between all the judges’ salaries, hopefully as ratings decline it will be too expensive to keep it on the air. How many Idols do we need.
does anyone know how much he gets for Britiains Got Talent and The X factor? He must also get something for producing Americas Got Talent… also doesnt his company own all these shows!!
Give me a break? The producers would come up with a different jerk to take his place and the fans could care less. Absolutely ridiculous! Boot the asshole!
Omega, yes Cowell can be replaced on American Idol but Fox won’t give him the payrise he wants because they’d never be able to replace him they’ll give him the payrise to stop him jumping to another network. The last thing Fox wants is Cowell showing up on America’s Got Talent or taking something like The X Factor to NBC or ABC or CBS.
And Josh, Simon Cowell currently gets £20 million from ITV as part of his ‘golden handcuffs’ deal that covers him for The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. I imagine he actually gets more than that though when you consider that his production company owns the rights to both shows as well. And yes he will get money from America’s Got Talent as well along with all the other international versions of the show and international versions of The X Factor. It is however worth noting that Cowell’s deal with ITV ends at the end of the year and rumour is he’ll be asked to take a pay cut along with everyone else on ITV. It’ll be interesting to see how that pans out.
Conservatively I’d guess Cowell is already taking home hundreds of millions a year.
Simon deserves the lions share of the credit for the stunning success of this show. He deserves the raise. Without Simon, this would be a run of the mill show, probably still ranked in the Top 20 but without 15-18 million viewers and making a fraction of the revenue it makes today. Yes, ratings are falling but the separation between Idol and the runner-up TV program is something like 10 million viewers.
I wonder if The X Factor is coming to the US, the format is way better.
Bill, you really shouldn’t live in glasshouses and throw rocks
I heard that TVBTN made several several $million and you wanted something like 1.4 million of it and Robert was only able to take home $600K, totally unfair.
The fact that Cowell wants 25% of the gross is amazing in itself but not surprising.
~Lanie~
haha. just change it to $1,400 and $600 and that sounds about right.