AMERICAN IDOL - MURDOCH PICKED IDOL, SAYS BOOK

Rupert Murdoch himself was responsible for launching American Idol on the Fox network, ordering his executives at the Fox network to put it on the air even as they were about to reject it, New York Times TV writer Bill Carter writes in his new book, Desperate Networks, which was published on Tuesday. According to Carter, in 2001 Simon Cowell and his partner, Simon Fuller, had pitched the show to the "Big 3" networks, which had rejected it, before presenting it to Sandy Grushow, head of entertainment at Fox, and his chief lieutenant, Gail Berman. Both execs, writes Carter, had a lukewarm reaction to the pilot -- an episode of Cowell and Fuller's Pop Idol, which had become a huge hit in the U.K. However, their CAA representatives contacted Elizabeth Murdoch, who was then running News Corp's BSkyB operation and was aware of the show's success in Britain and was a fan of it herself. She, in turn, phoned her father, News Corp chairman, Rupert Murdoch, who then contacted Peter Chernin, News Corp's president and COO. "We're still looking at it," Chernin told him. Murdoch responded, "Don't look at it. Buy it! Right now."

04/05/2006