Cowell’s track record of producing hit talent shows is undeniable, and he’s got the stats to prove that. This year, Got Talent tops Eurodata TV Worldwide’s “Most-watched reality shows in international markets” list – for the second year running. Data from the audience measurement firm suggests that the franchise is currently the most popular entertainment format in the world and has travelled to more territories as a format than any other talent show in history.
“It’s in about 50 (territories) now, the target in five years will be about 100,” Cowell tells me when I complimented him on his success, and with a laugh, he says “it’s definitely my personal target, and in fact anything over a 100 I’d be happy with.”
Cowell grants me this 15-minute phone interview from his Sony Music office in South Kensington, London. SYCO, the global music, television and film production joint venture between Cowell and Sony Music Entertainment, together with FremantleMedia, are responsible for hit reality formats Got Talent and of late, X Factor. While the latter sees Cowell prominently involved as judge and EP in the U.S., the top man in reality TV is also very much involved as creator, EP and judge in Britain’s Got Talent (BGT). While Cowell is working hard to make the format a success back in the UK, the now-famous franchise, ironically, did not quite pop in its country of origin initially.
“It’s interesting, because we launched the show in America when normally we’d launch these shows in the UK, and in a way I think it was a good thing. It enabled us to get the (U.S.) show sold in the UK because we were struggling with it (the UK version) first of all. And importantly both shows have produced great talent. Probably the British show is beating the American show at the moment but they served their purpose which is they were two successful TV shows and more importantly, they found and discovered great talent,” says Cowell.
With format seller FremantleMedia’s successful global distribution, I cannot help but wonder how the show can fall very flat if sold to a territory with (unfortunately) insufficient talent. After all, you can’t engineer talent, can you? Surprisingly, Cowell tells me my worries are real and that it’s occurred in his own backyard.
“It does happen certain years. There was a year, in the UK where I was very, very disappointed in most of the finalists and I felt the show was almost like a waste of time that year. Then the following year, we worked much, much harder to get out and find talents ourselves and encouraged people to enter the show and this year in the UK it was a much better format and the figures went up on the previous year. So, on a show like this, you’ve got to be very proactive as a company and not just rely on luck. You’ve got to go out there and encourage people to enter the show.” And out there Cowell went, putting his money where his mouth is. In Cowell’s case, he literally puts out the money.
“On the UK show this year, I put up £250,000 personally of the £500,000 (the cash prize for BGT Season 6 rose from £100,000) because I thought it would help to attract better people. Money often attract better talent,” replies Cowell resolutely. By that he proves that even a seemingly unpredictable external element of the show can indeed be controlled; and Cowell expects Got Talent producers worldwide to follow suit.
“We had to say to all of the territories that the world is a different place from what it was ten years ago. You’ve got to put together a team, and luckily we’re partners with Sony (Sony Music Entertainment) which helps us. We could use the Internet, we could use YouTube, we could use money; whatever is necessary to go out to attract better people for the show. But where we’ve been lucky is that we can use someone like Susan Boyle as an example and say to talent (that) ‘by entering this show it can change your life,’ – and she’s gone on to sell 25 million albums.”
And Cowell, as usual, is right. Susan Boyle, while enjoying tremendous success as a recording and performing artiste, did not even win BGT (she was runner-up), but yet it was she that guest performed at the finals of China’s Got Talent Season 2, arguably the most successful Got Talent incarnation outside of the U.S. and the UK. The beauty of Got Talent then, is that it proves anyone, and absolutely anyone, can go from entertainment zero to hero.
While anyone can snag the top prize, Cowell insists that not anyone can make Got Talent like his team can. “Whenever you have a success people are going to try and copy it.
We’re very lucky with Got Talent that when we were devising the format, we try to make it as ‘bullet-proof’ as possible and I feel personally, there’s not a better way of making this show,” assures Cowell. “It’s got a legacy now with people like Paul Potts and Susan Boyle behind it which the competitors don’t have, and every part of this show; from the auditions through to the middle shows and the live shows – very, very difficult to make this a better show. In fact, someone just tried to make this in Holland, and it’s failed. So I have to rely on the strength of the individual producers on our shows around the world to make this show as good as possible so people don’t want to copy it. What we normally say to the broadcasters is ‘it’s best not to copy it – just invest in ours,’ and where people have tried to copy this format, there are expensive mistakes when it goes wrong.”
The difficulties in establishing a case of copying (whose idea is truly original these days?) has spawned an “overcrowding” of the talent show format, particularly this year.
“If you look at America this year, there’s probably about 11 entertainment shows that’s already been on this year, and it’s only September!” laments Cowell. “Every network wants a slice of this market now. But I always believe that when you’re in a situation like that, you have to make better shows yourself – the strong survive and the weak eventually disappear. You just don’t want to be one of the weak ones. These are very, very expensive mistakes. When you get them wrong – and as a broadcaster you’ve got to commit to certain amount of weeks – you’ve got to be very careful about what you do.”
On expensive mistakes, I asked Cowell about the clearance of music rights; a bane that can often stall a talent show format. “You’ve got to have great music clearance people on the show and we’ve got better at this over the years. There are certain acts you can NEVER clear and sometimes I’ve actually had to get on the phone personally, to the person who’s composed the song. We’ve done it with Eminem, U2, and Paul McCartney. Sometimes a personal call to them to say that you’re not going to ruin their song allows us to clear the song. You know, the use of music within this show is very important.”
One cannot help but feel that with Cowell’s clout, picking up the phone and saying “hi, I am Simon Cowell” usually does the trick. Still, Cowell demonstrates a great deal of tenacity as EP to want to make things work on the show. I remind Cowell, however, of the reality that he cannot always influence the outcome of the international versions of Got Talent.
“I try to be as hands on as possible. I also try, through the guys who run the international department here, to meet with local producers and sometimes the judges. We’re going to do an international workshop this year which explains how the format has evolved from the beginning till now, and I think the UK is a good example. We’ve done six years of it, and the sixth version is the best we’ve ever had in terms of the look of the show. You’ve got to constantly change the production, and the panel, and you’ve got to freshen it up. And it’s interesting with this show; it could go off the air one year, and then come back two years later – and work again.”
Cowell tells me the feedback from the workshop is actually both ways. Admittedly, he too, can learn from his foreign counterparts. “George Levendis (Head of International for SYCO Television) would essentially run the international workshop but we would do it also in conjunction with FremantleMedia and the idea is to talk about what we’ve done well but just as importantly, to listen to other territories to learn why their ratings may have gone up one year and what they’ve done to do it, so that we work as a unified team.”
Great Britain has been the frontrunner when it comes to churning out long-lasting and audience-grabbing formats; think X Factor, Idol, Strictly Come Dancing and MasterChef – and Cowell is certainly at the centre of this phenomenon. Yet, as a format’s shelf life lengthens, so does the possibility of viewer fatigue.
“Yes, it’s been a concern, but I always believe the important thing when you’re making a show is that you have to transcend a decade,” explains Cowell. “And some of these shows that were made five years ago look incredibly dated now. Our job as a company is to make the show feel as if it’s the first year we’ve ever made the show, and that’s why we constantly change the producers on this show so it doesn’t look old-fashioned.”
Six years after the original U.S. premiere, the Got Talent franchise continues to sizzle. Cowell’s fiercely proud of the talent the show has produced – ordinary men and women made good; a quality that has rendered the show both endearing and inspirational.
“I think the format is very simple, and a really good one. It’s one of those shows I believe would last for years, because you don’t get bored of it as quickly as other shows, because it’s not JUST about singers. You can have a year like we’ve just had, in a country (UK) that loved dogs – we had a dancing dog that won! And you can feel the positive effect it had the week after the dog won. Everybody in this country felt great about it. Or you can have an underdog story like Susan Boyle which you wouldn’t get on any other show and the fact that there’s very little rules on this show, (means) you could tailor it to the individual territories,” explains Cowell.
This May, BGT Season 6 crowned its first non-human winner; a dancing dog called Pudsey, who danced alongside his teenage owner Ashleigh Butler to BGT glory. If anything at all, this season has fired the imagination of the viewing public, proving that indeed every dog can truly have its day.
