Home  Forums |
|
|
|
|
Topic History of: Simon Cowell/Tom Bower
Max. showing the last 5 posts - (Last post first)
|
Mike Read's Hairdresser |
You should have got in with an IT / Telecoms company to create a televoting software system, which you could then have licensed to all the TV shows that went on to adopt the format - you'd have made millions I'm sure.
Isn't hindsight such a wonderful (or awful) thing, depending on how you look at it!  |
|
DJones |
Bower is so obsessed with gossip about Cowell’s private life (he has announced a fellow-up book with more of the same), he fails completely when it comes to the meat of the story: the business of TV & music. Apart from the self-serving hype of the interested parties, Bower has not much to say about the deals between Cowell & Freemantle/BMG and later Sony Music.
To describe Cowell - a small (ok, mid-sized) cog in a big wheel- as a “media mogul” (title of chapter 13) - “Cowell was relieved. Aged fifty-one, he had asserted his primacy as a television mogul, a worthy successor to Aaron Spelling” (p 288) - is laughable.
Even Bower realizes this eventually. Just 26 pages later he has this to say about his subject:
“On reflection, Cowell recognized his weakness in America. Without a hinterland, influential allies or top-gun American executives, he could only bow to two fearful and superstitious corporate employees who were proposing a ridiculous solution. Quite simply (…) he lacked any firepower to push through the obvious solution”.
Buying this book is a waste of money. The Sun - free on the internet - has the best bits serialized. |
|
dixie |
DJones wrote:
After the first two or three chapters I thought the book was quite good, much better than I had feared. But after reading about half of it, I’m getting angry: There are lots of unnecessary minor / silly mistakes which add up to a completely false picture.
One example, the record deals around Pop Idol:
Bower says that BMG and Sony were partners at the beginning of 2002 (p 134). But the joint venture was created two years later.
The music rights to the Pop-Idol-winners weren’t licensed to Sony in the US and to Universal in the rest of the world (p 147f). BMG (& after the merger Sony BMG) had the music rights for the world (and all territories beyond).
If Bower got this wrong what about the really important stuff, like the order of Cowell’s breakfast (p 153)?
I'm only about 100 pages in, and not enjoying it very much. Too much not right, as you say. A much better book is Ex-Jive MD Steve Jenkins book. |
|
DJones |
After the first two or three chapters I thought the book was quite good, much better than I had feared. But after reading about half of it, I’m getting angry: There are lots of unnecessary minor / silly mistakes which add up to a completely false picture.
One example, the record deals around Pop Idol:
Bower says that BMG and Sony were partners at the beginning of 2002 (p 134). But the joint venture was created two years later.
The music rights to the Pop-Idol-winners weren’t licensed to Sony in the US and to Universal in the rest of the world (p 147f). BMG (& after the merger Sony BMG) had the music rights for the world (and all territories beyond).
If Bower got this wrong what about the really important stuff, like the order of Cowell’s breakfast (p 153)? |
|
JK2006 |
Cowell told me about the format, asked my permission to borrow the phone vote idea and, at my suggestion, took it to Fuller (who I met years earlier through Hugh Goldsmith with whom I am lunching today).
When I've since discussed this with Fuller he tells me he had a similar format and suggested to Cowell they combine the two. SC agreed.
I have lunch with SF in May. |
|
|
|
