HIS PANTOMIME villain on-screen persona, ability to create celebrities out of ordinary people and ruthless eye for a business deal have made him the grand master of reality TV and one of Britain’s most recognisable personalities.
Now, the one-man show business juggernaut that is Simon Cowell has reached another milestone: he has been named the best-paid man on US television, beating the billionaire real estate magnate Donald Trump in the process.
According to Forbes magazine, Cowell’s pre-tax earnings totalled $75m (€50m) between June 1, 2008 and June 1, 2009. The figure includes his income from ’American Idol’ -- the most popular series on US prime-time TV with an average weekly audience of 27 million -- as well as the money he made from his music production and publishing work.
The publication’s latest list of "Prime-Time’s Top-Earning Men" places the 50-year-old British impresario comfortably above Donald Trump, who stars in the US version of ’The Apprentice’, where he fills the role of the belligerent boss taken by Lord Sugar in the UK series. Trump earned $50m (€34m) when his income from numerous product endorsements, speeches and book sales was taken into account. Hugh Laurie, who stars in the medical drama ’House’, came ninth with earnings of $10m.
According to Forbes, the secret of Cowell’s success is his "diversified resume". He created the phenomenally successful reality shows ’American Idol’, ’Britain’s Got Talent’ and ’The X Factor’, and although he has since surrendered the rights to them he is paid a handsome salary to be a judge.
Cowell, who left school at 16 for a job in the mail room at EMI, also created his own record label, Syco music, which steps in to offer the winning acts their first contracts. Last year, the Christmas number-one single (’Hallelujah’ by X Factor winner Alexandra Burke) and the song it pipped to the top spot (the charity single ’Hero’ sung by the show’s finalists) were released by Syco, now owned by Sony BMG. The label also put out the year’s fourth most popular album, Leona Lewis’s ’Spirit’.
Cowell’s business sense is not faultless. Yesterday it was reported that a property investment he had made in Barbados had run into trouble. However, at the beginning of last month he spent an estimated £1m on his 50th birthday party at Wrotham Park, a stately manor in Hertfordshire, England.
