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From Graycharles.com

On MSNBC Last night Simon Cowell said the following to Rita Cosby:

Rita: Who do you think will win? What’s your prediction on who’s gonna win? Who’s gonna take it all?

Simon: I have a horrible feeling the public is going to vote for Taylor, and I’d prefer Chris.

Click here : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12038418/ for the page scroll to bottom and click on “Video: Inside ‘Idol’ with Simon Cowell”. The quote is after the four minute mark.

SNIP SNIP

Why would Simon “prefer” Chris? Easy, Simon’s job is to market and sell the winner of AI to the public. Is Chris marketable? Absolutely and easily. Remember that first and foremost Simon would like to make money off the winner. With Chris, you have a performer that is easily packaged into a box that makes sense. Go ahead and try it for yourself --- write a one sentence summary of Chris.

Alt-Rock Edge in “nice guy” package - that’s mine.

Now compare Chris to another band thats popular today - once again, it’s all too easy.

Now try and do the same with Taylor Hicks - it’s much more difficult. If you’re in Simon’s shoes, how do you go about “selling” Taylor to the public? Name another musician that is big on the pop charts today that you could compare to Taylor. See the difficulty? This is the challenge that Simon doesn’t want to face.

Does Simon prefer Taylor’s music to Chris? I would argue that, for the purposes of this competition - it’s irrelevant. Simon prefers to make money - Chris can easily be a money making machine - Taylor, who knows? Now, before you go off on all the fans who watch AI lets remember that you constitue a small slice of the music buying public. Selling AI fans on Taylor is one thing, selling the world is an entirely different matter.