Simon Cowell has broken his silence on the disastrous decisions he has made which have led to a slump in ratings for ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ and ‘The X Factor’. The music mogul, who is now back in Britain following a month-long holiday, is hoping he can find out what went wrong last year and turn things around for his two biggest shows. After a successful 2010 for both series, Cowell admitted he got “a bit too cocky” last year and admitted the slumping viewing figures had “put my ego in check”. As the 52-year-old prepared to return to the ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ panel full-time for the first time in Manchester today, Cowell admitted he was prepared to work hard to get back on top. With the brutal honesty he is famous for, Cowell criticised last year’s BGT panel Michael McIntyre, David Hasselhoff and Amanda Holden for not doing “a good enough job”. 2011 saw Cowell quit the panels of both ‘X Factor’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ to focus on launching ‘X Factor USA’. Of course, ‘X Factor USA’ didn’t go too smoothly after he fired Cheryl Cole and the show failed to attract the huge ratings he predicated. The 2011 series of ‘X Factor UK’-with new judges Gary Barlow, Tulisa Contostavlos and Kelly Rowland joining Louis Walsh – found itself being regularly beaten in the ratings war by BBC rival ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. He told The Sun: “I got a bit too cocky. We got a big wake-up call. We went into 2011 thinking, ‘It’s all going to be easy’ and of course it wasn’t. It was the year my ego was put in check. I ended 2010 on a real high, it was the Matt Cardle year-my favourite year-and the figures for X Factor were huge.” As well as the fall in the UK shows, his new game show ‘Red Or Black’ was surrounded in controversy when it was revealed the £1million winner Nathan Hageman had been jailed for assaulting his girlfriend. Earlier this month, it was revealed Cowell had poached Alesha Dixon from ‘Strictly’ to be a judge on the new series of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, along with David Walliams. And after ‘X Factor’ was frequently beaten by ‘Strictly’ last year, Cowell was in the mood for revenge. “The Alesha thing was kind of fun. My decision to poach her was 70-30 on the fact she was on ‘Strictly’ and the fact I liked her. I knew the BBC was putting on The Voice. They’ve done this to have a pop at The X Factor and to have a go at the BGT ratings.” Meanwhile, Cowell is also preparing to make “changes” to ‘X Factor USA’. Although the series attracted healthy ratings, they were still a long way off attracting the same audience as Cowell’s former show ‘American Idol’. Whether Antonio ‘LA’ Reid, Paula Abdul or Nicole Scherzinger will be returning this year or if Steve Jones continues to present the show remains to be seen.
