“Absolutely not” that is what Simon Cowell said about staying in the American Idol judge role if the show do not get the top spot in the television ratings.
The show still ranks as America’s most-watched program by a wide margin, but th show have followed the pattern of the rest of the television industry and declined in recent seasons.
“Being No. 1 is verging on an obsession with me. I don’t like being No. 2,” Cowell told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview released Tuesday. “I don’t mind when you start at No. 10 — people don’t always go on as No. 1 — and you’ve got somewhere to go. But if you’re at the point you’ve reached it, of course you want to stay there.”
This season’s Tuesday and Wednesday broadcasts have each averaged more than 26 million viewers per episode — averages that currently rank more than six million viewers ahead of Dancing with the Stars’ Monday performance broadcasts, the only other show to average more than 20 million viewers.
“I don’t accept the argument of fragmentation or declining numbers,” he told The Reporter. “The Super Bowl goes up every year.”
Idol’s ability to retain its No. 1 ratings ranking and Cowell’s self-proclaimed “obsession” with it could be a big deal in the next year, as the November 2005 five-season agreement he signed with Fox expires after the show’s ninth season next spring.
Cowell has openly speculated in recent weeks that he might leave Idol once his current contract expires due to his other obligations to his The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent U.K. reality competitions. Cowell doesn’t seem to be interested in signing another five-season deal. The 2005 contract extension that Cowell inked with Fox have an agreement that Fox can’t buy the rights to do an American adaptation of The X Factor.
In a contradictory statement Cowell told The New York Times that once his Fox contract expires he would be free to sell the rights to The X Factor stateside and even appear on-screen for the series — which is something he currently can’t do with any of his other American projects, including NBC’s America’s Got Talent, due to his Fox contract.
