Cheryl Cole loses ‘X Factor’ judge job to Nicole Scherzinger

Simon Cowell: feckless boss or PR genius? You decide.

Word landed early Monday that after weeks of rumors, British pop singer Cheryl Cole was officially out as a judge on “The X Factor,” Cowell’s new singing contest that premieres on Fox this fall. She will be replaced by Nicole Scherzinger, formerly of the pop group the Pussycat Dolls.

“Fox, Fremantle North America and Syco TV today confirm Nicole Scherzinger will be replacing Cheryl Cole on the judging panel of ‘The X Factor,’” the companies behind the show wrote in a terse statement Monday morning. Scherzinger will join Cowell as well as Paula Abdul and recording veteran L.A. Reid at the judges’ table.

Scherzinger was originally set to co-host the show alongside Welsh-born TV presenter Steve Jones. Now Jones will go it alone. A spokesman for the show did not respond to a question about whether some early auditions featuring Cole will need to be reshot.

The reasons for Cole’s ouster remain mysterious. Some reports suggested that during early tapings, Americans were having trouble understanding her accent. Other accounts faulted a lack of chemistry between her and Abdul. The statement issued Monday did not offer a reason for her exit, nor did it say whether she would return to the British version of “X Factor,” on which she has appeared.

Because Fox and the producers have been uncharacteristically tight-lipped as rumors swirled about Cole’s status on the show, some have depicted the controversy as a black eye for Cowell, the music impresario who exited “American Idol” to launch “X Factor” in the U.S. and now risks looking like a boss who couldn’t figure out how to properly fire someone.

But it’s also possible that whatever problems may have existed with Cole, Cowell milked the situation for maximum media impact. Neither Cole nor “X Factor” itself had any profile in the U.S. before now — a situation the controversy over her ouster has partly rectified.

TV reporters have already spent the past few weeks as Cowell’s personal yo-yos, as the on-again, off-again drama played out. Indeed, a new round of reports this weekend indicated that Cole was applying for a U.S. visa in anticipation of a possible return.

“It’s his genius at work,” Brad Adgate, an analyst for New York ad firm Horizon Media, said of Cowell. “Paula Abdul as a judge is another example of a savvy strategic move.” Abdul became known during her “Idol” years for emotional outbursts and on-camera ramblings that befuddled viewers and inspired numerous news stories.

The British version of “X Factor” is notorious for stunts, hokum and manufactured melodrama. A member of the group G4, which found fame on the show, later dismissed the judges’ on-air bickering as “pure pantomime” and called “X Factor’s” endless publicity stunts “silly.”

The question is whether Cowell’s brand of media carpet-bombing will work this time. The U.S. TV market is a lot bigger and more chaotic than in the U.K. And there’s a risk that Americans might be turned off by a show that looks like an over-orchestrated media con before it even premieres. Already, “X Factor” is being beaten out by scripted series such as Fox’s “Terra Nova” in want-to-see polls of TV viewers.

On the other hand, Cowell’s media instincts have seldom failed him. So this could be just the first shot in a war that’s going to last a long, long time.

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