• As expected, Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell have reached a settlement in their American Idol feud. Cowell will stay on as a judge, Fuller will drop his copyright infringement lawsuit and male teens everywhere will dream of banging Paula Abdul. [NYT]
• The MTA wants toll booth agents to start dusting the stations and emptying trash cans. The employees' union, naturally, would rather the stations remain the chemical waste dumps they are. [NYT]
• It's much more entertaining to be fired when you're drinking Donald Trump's Trump Super Premium Vodka. It's like he's pointing two of his fingers at you and, with goggles on, his hair looks halfway manageable. [Gawker]
• Freddy Ferrer is, somehow, still making headlines. In what we hope will be the last we hear from him, he's blaming biased media reports for his loss and not Michael Bloomberg's gazillions. [NYT]
• We're not sure what focus group greenlighted this idea, but TiVo is moving ahead with plans to offer views wishlists of advertising. [Hollywood Reporter]
• The Rolling Stones have been signed for the Super Bowl's half-time show. Should any of their skin start flaking away from their bones, there will be a five to 10 second delay to divert the cameras. [Variety]
There are two reasons we watch American Idol: To play the "Paula Abdul Seizure-Inducing Clapping" drinking game and watch those teen contestants contractually enforced to parade themselves around for those Ford music video-slash-commercials.
But when the Fox juggernaut returns for its fifth season in January, our default third reason for watching might be missing from the line up: Simon Cowell.
That's because Fox has yet to reach a deal with the tight T-shirted judge over his tenure. To pair down all the details for you, it goes something like this:
• Cowell started his own Idol-like show in Britain, called X-Factor
• American Idol and (British version) Pop Idol creator Simon Fuller is none too pleased, filing a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement
• Cowell's current contract doesn't give him the default right to sign this season's American Idol winner to his record label, as has been the case in seasons past. He'd like to change that
• If Fox doesn't mean Cowell's demands, he's got plenty of motivation to sell an American version of X-Factor (starring him) to Fox's competitors. NBC and ABC have already shown interest
• Fox wants any new deal to include a clause preventing Cowell from selling an American X-Factor and first rights to pick it up if they so choose
• None of the parties want to see this go to trial, which was set to start today if a settlement wasn't reached
Whew. After all that, don't even get us started on the pending decision to move American Idol from Tuesdays and Wednesdays to Wednesdays and Thursdays to better compete with CBS and NBC, which goes a little something like this: Fox is considering moving American Idol from Tuesdays and Wednesdays to Wednesdays and Thursdays to better compete with CBS and NBC.
