Simon Cowell Says ‘X Factor’ Judges Won’t ‘Hog The Airtime’

Simon Cowell believes that celebrity judges are taking up too much time on televised singing competitions these days. However, he claims X Factor will always put the contestants first.

Now that summer has come to an end, broadcast and cable networks are busy putting together the latest batch of shows for the upcoming fall season. This includes a number of like-minded competitions designed to find the country’s next greatest singing sensation.

During his talk with Yahoo! News’ Reality Rocks, Simon Cowell explained that viewers are getting increasingly bored with the way these programs focus on the judges instead of the contestants. However, the One Direction mastermind insists that The X-Factor won’t take this route.

Cowell told the website:

To be honest with you, not only am I bored of the focus on judges, but I think the public is bored of it now. Obviously the judges play a role, but people are tuning in, I think, to see contestants more than whatever the judges are doing. I think it’s right that we just show what we do as our job, but we don’t hog the airtime.

The X-Factor judge said he was very aware of how fans reacted to Britney Spears last season. He said this influenced who he pursued as possible replacements. Instead of going for the big names, Simon Cowell was focused on finding someone who would be beneficial to the show.

“With them, it wasn’t ‘How much are you going to pay me?’ It was basically how much they were looking forward to finding a star. They were very interested in how well the contestants have done on the U.K. show, and that seemed to be their main motive. And that was the reason why we hired them,” he said.

Fans of Simon Cowell can catch the season premiere of The X-Factor tonight (September 11) on FOX. Are you looking forward to the new batch of contestants?

[Image via Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com]