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Reports say ITV has been searching for a new big Saturday night show – as Simon Cowell’s £100 million deal with ITV expires at the end of the year.
The multi-millionaire at the back of X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent has only one more series of both ITV talent show left on his deal with the network that are already ending next year.
Now, that the X Factor has entered its ninth series, ITV bosses were already talking about finding another Saturday night programmes, dubbed ‘shiny floor’ shows to replace the show.
ITV’s Director of Television Peter Fincham called his yearly ‘producers forum’ last month, where Elaine Bedell, ITV’s director of comedy and entertainment want to have new formats that could take ITV into the top for the coming two years.
A source heard Elaine saying: ‘Elaine said "We need big, large scale entertainment formats for Saturday night."'
ITV and Cowell, 52, have had somewhat of a burdened relationship right after the release of the X Factor svengali’s biography on an early part of this year.
Tom Bower’s book, Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell, charted Cowell’s fallout with ITV, which recalls how channel executives labelled him ‘disruptive’ and ‘interfering’, and accused him of ‘spinning too many plates’.
However, the other day, Mr Fincham claimed that they aren’t planning on replacing the talent show.
Mr Fincham insisted the show would stay for a longer time with the network. He won’t axe the show based on ratings for one night - or even one series.
As Fincham, said in Edinburgh TV Festival: 'It's got years. The X Factor is not the 100m it is the 10,000m. Think Mo Farah, not Usain Bolt.
He admitted that is impossible to find a new show that could replace an entertainment juggernaut.
However, he insisted that X Factor wasn’t the only show that suffers a ratings fall - and pointed to Strictly Come Dancing, which last year performed strongly after a few boring seasons.
Mr Fincham added that if his predecessors had axed Coronation Street when ratings had dropped after decades - then viewers would have missed out on many good episodes.
The TV boss believes that the hot weather and the Olympics are to be blamed for the ratings falling down. Adding people want to get out instead of watching television.
The ninth series of X Factor has the worst audience figures for six years.
There was only an average of just 8.1million watch X Factor for the first episode on Saturday night – down more than 2million on last year’s debut that attracted 10.5million.
It was the worst start for X Factor series since 2006.
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