Simon Cowell is a music producer and executive of the BMG UK record company whose blunt assessments of the contestants on TV's American Idol made him the most talked about personality on the show's panel of judges. Cowell has been in the pop music business in the United Kingdom since the 1970s, and is credited with "discovering" such pop stars as the boy band Westlife and the pop duo Robson and Jerome. Cowell's specialty is marketing TV and pop music together, and in 2001 he hosted the forerunner to American Idol, England's U.K. Pop Idol.
jrabbit, did you see this extra info about Simon that Tony posted?