Whether it’s Simon Cowell’s X-Factor USA or Vlad Putin’s X-Factor Winter Olympics, what makes a show expected to be good do just the opposite and bomb?
After three seasons of hype, evaporating ratings, and invisible record sales, Cowell’s singing show has officially been canceled. FOX diplomatically said it has “completed its domestic run.”
And, after three weeks of chaos and confusion, Russian czar Vladimir Putin’s Winter X-Factor Olympics will soon follow suit and wither away to punch line lore.
Putin will proclaim the boondoggle at Sochi a great success, choosing to ignore the harvest of seven years of graft, thievery, and corruption that built a façade straight out of Blazing Saddles II. I teach sales for a living. And I’m still wondering what the heck he’s selling.
Russia spent more on these Winter Games than all other Winter Games in history combined. Putin promised to build a city and infrastructure where none existed. He built a shell for part of it and a road to another but will never finish the rest.
Once the world leaves the expiration date is reached and the area will be ignored. After all, if no one comes when you have the Olympics, why would anyone come when you don’t? Vlad won’t notice. Once the show is over, the Putin circus rolls on.
Whatever Sochi is, it is not the Olympics. This is contrived commercialism that makes Atlanta’s crassly commercialized Summer Games seem palatable because at least in Atlanta the venues were sufficient. Somewhere, I sense, the late Avery Brundage is rolling over.
For twenty years Brundage presided over the Olympic Games, resisting commercialism and espousing the virtues of amateurism. Who would have ever thought that one day we would look back and think, “Maybe he had a point?”
These Olympics are more a vanity stage than sporting event; and the road to Putin’s dressing room is paved by the ignored needs of the Russian majority. Amateurs don’t need $50 billion of wasted money. Amateurs just need a game to play.
As usual the Winter Games are just as ignored by most of the world as winter tennis. There are only so many things a person can do on ice and snow, just as there are only a couple surfaces on which a ball may bounce.
Because of this Sochi is made-for-TV shlock. The athletes get 15 minutes of fame, 20 if they’re lucky, plus their share of 100,000 condoms dealt out in the Olympic Village. No one knows these people, nor will they be remembered.
We look at Sochi and wonder, “Where in the heck is civilization headed?” Clues may be found by comparing the demise of the Cowell’s USA “X-Factor” franchise with Putin’s X-Factor Olympic Games.
Granted, graft, corruption, and egomaniacal vanity are worse some places than others but certainly not limited to one side of the sea.
Things That Went Wrong for both “The X Factor” and The Putin Games:
1. Simon hires his buddy Paula Abdul. Cronyism.
Old chemistry recreates only for Coca-Cola. Paula bombed and was replaced.
Putin has no conscience except to Yes men he needs to maximize the cash. If the hired help stumbles, the hired help is gone. I hope the Ring Man whose snowflake never opened during the opening ceremony—a fact hidden from Putin and the Russian TV audience –enjoys chopping firewood and stalking caribou in Siberia.
Simon also fired Cheryl Cole after two weeks. You’re gone, musical people, no warning. She was replaced by Nicole Scherzinger, originally tapped to co-host the show. She was a useless judge and worthless mentor who refused to make a decision on a results show. Her inaction led to the shocking elimination of the wrong contestant.
Beautifully incompetent she was.
Disposable people are part of Putin’s Olympics too. Putin is a control monster. Whether you are a wife of 30 years, a former gymnast half his age, or the guy who cares for his horses, once you are deemed disposable, there is no due process — everyone in Putin’s Russia is as replaceable as a pair of socks.
Russians know how the game is played. Team Canada was furious that a Russian worker turned up the temperature of the lower half of the climate-controlled luge course, which melted snow and slowed down the Canadian sled enough to cost the country a medal. This is, of course, was deemed as service to Mother Russia. A job well done.
The Russian response? “He (Canada’s coach) needs to stop being a sore loser.”
2. Simon hires host Steve Jones. Looks matter. Jones became an immediate image problem because he was a pretty boy underwear model with zero TV experience.
Like Simon, Putin also ignores image problems. He sleeps with his and parades her around.
Alina Kabayeva, who is alleged to have given birth to Putin’s lovechild, is a “politician” after retiring from a career in ribbon twirling and twice competed in the Summer Olympics. She got deputized into the United Russia party at 23.
She won a bronze in 2000 in Atlanta at 16 and a gold in Sydney four years later. She competed in rhythmic gymnastics – a natural segue to be named third most elite Russian athlete of all time – as she handed off the torch to the duo who lit the Olympic flame.
Putin must really love rhythmic gymnastics, especially as performed by a woman half his age who’s 5’5” and 101 pounds.
Alina Kabayeva
Rumors about Putin’s alleged affair with Miss Kabayeva first surfaced six years ago when a Russian newspaper owned by oligarch Alexander Lebedev reported that Putin wanted to marry his gymnast mistress.
Putin angrily denied the story. Shockingly, the newspaper was closed down shortly afterwards. The irony of this was lost on no one, who logically attributed the shuttering to Putin’s rage at being “outed.”
Further stories later emerged claiming that Miss Kabayeva had had a baby by the president, but both sides denied the claim.
Simon Cowell, of course, is a noted lothario who has sired a soon-to-be son out of wedlock to a woman married to another man — a “friend.”
From similar cloth these men are cut, especially when it comes to tailoring their attention to the ladies.
3. FOX network bizarrely criticizes “American Idol.” Crowing loudly is eerily similar to carnival barking.
Nine seasons on “American Idol” made Simon Cowell a household name. The first FOX promo for “The X-Factor” was three-minute disparagement of his former employer. Simon came across quite ungracious.
The same holds true for Putin. In business and politics, he is the consummate taker. What he sold and delivered are poles apart. His trumpeting about modern Russia’s place on the global stage is so far from reality you have to wonder if his girlfriend wrote the pitch.
4. Simon tells The Hollywood Reporter that an audience of less than 20 million would be a “disappointment.” Bombast is a strategy.
Simon was never able to live this one down. The X-Factor series premiere drew 13 million. By Season 3 the show’s audience (at cancellation) was six million. More quit watching than kept watching.
The Putin Games feature big blocks empty unsold seats and invisible tourists. This after “papering the hall” as the industry of butts-in-seats likes to say.
International travel to Sochi is negligible—despite a skyjacker who wanted to go so bad he commandeered a plane.
Participants warned family and friends to stay away. Those who came were instructed not to wear USA-branded attire around town.
Deciding an Olympic Games belongs twenty miles from a town of 350,000 and forty miles from a hill — and less than a morning’s drive from a terrorist nerve center — is hardly a geography for mass appeal.
The vision Putin sold the selection committee looks worth than Bob Costas’s left eye.
5. X-Factor fails to mention Stacy Francis’s professional past. Details, details. Who cares?
The fortysomething single mom went from being America’s sweetheart to America’s most reviled, when her professional past was “outed.” Inflammatory articles stoked outrage over the show’s lack of transparency. Producers ignored the audience backlash and pulled the same stunt two years later.
Larisa Latynina won 18 medals for Russia in gymnastics. But she’s 79. Putin’s squeeze won two. Who earned the torch? People aren’t stupid, despite what Putin believes. Details, details.
6. Melanie Amaro’s album never comes out. Unfulfilled promises? You’re kidding!
X-Factor’s Season 1 winner was promised a $5 million recording contract. Her debut disc, Truly, was slated for a Dec. 2012 release, then last March, and now has been shelved indefinitely after her two singles failed to chart. For a show based on the premise of launching superstar careers, this was a torpedo mid-ship.
False promises? Can we even imagine Putin issuing false promises? Sure. Walk five minutes in any direction. You’ll find plenty. Or just ask the world’s greatest snowboarders about their competition half-pipe. Seven years to prepare, and they rode in slush. Their competition—the greatest riders in the world—was like holding the US Open golf championship on a ratty $20 local golf course.
7. Simon thinks hiring Britney Spears will solve everything. Glitz and glamor over substance, any time.
Following Simon’s mass firing spree at the end of Season 1, Fox paid Brit Brit a whopping $15 million to judge Season 2. All she brought to the judges’ table was her name and fame.
When in doubt, go sexy. Putin, like Cowell, is a narcissist and narcissists surround themselves with lap dogs and like-minded beautiful people. Putin spent so much time and money on the opening ceremony for TV, he forgot to finish virtually everything else. It was a glitzy opening, wasn’t it?
8. L.A. Reid quits. Bolt while they’re still clapping.
Despite his impressive résumé as the co-founder of LaFace Records and chairman/CEO of the Island Def Jam Music Group, L.A. never brought much to “The X Factor” except a bad attitude.
While no one missed him after he quit, Reid’s decision looked like a guy jumping off a sinking ship.
Evgeni Pleshenko was a surprise quitter during the men’s skating competition. He dutifully helped Mother Russia win gold in team ice skating, tweaked his back, blew a kiss, and waved goodbye.
Another skater flew back to Moscow to practice, afraid an ice fleck would give her a Bob Costas-like eye infection.
9. Demi Lovato gives her heart a break and quits the show. Familiarity breeds contempt.
Simon and Demi’s December-to-May snarky friendship was cute at first, biting at the end. By then they hated each other.
Good luck Vlad and Alina. We wish you all the best.