Simon Cowell

These days, media mogul Simon Cowell is best known for his role as Saturday night television impresario on The X Factor. Whilst he has an obvious talent for the theatre of show business, the briefest of glances at his curriculum vitae shows a natural talent for real business. Leaving school at the age of 16, Cowell's stratospheric rise can be attributed to hard work, natural business nous and an unnerving ability to give the public what it wants.

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Love him or loathe him, Simon Cowell is a true force of nature in 21st Century popular culture; dominant in both music and television, Cowell's empire appears to have gathered an unstoppable momentum. However, the controversy over 2009's Christmas Number One slot seems to suggest that there may be a pop-culture revolution on the horizon. Since the advent of the X-Factor, Christmas has been synonymous with the winner of the show claiming the coveted number one slot in the music charts. Given that this outcome had become as predictable as dry turkey and indigestion, one could be forgiven for assuming that 2009's winner Joe McElderry would tread the well-worn path of X-Factor alumni Alexandra Burke et al before him and go on to win the race to number one. In fact, the past four consecutive Christmas number one singles released by X-Factor winners had all reached the top spot in the charts, so 2009 looked to be a done deal. However, much to the surprise of those who saw The X-Factor as a behemoth astride the UK music industry in 2009 it was very much a case of David and Goliath-style giant killing, with the relatively obscure heavy metal band Rage Against the Machine emerging victorious. The result of a viral campaign which started on Twitter and spread like wildfire across the social networking site Facebook, the X Factor juggernaut was defeated at the hands of a general public who appeared dissatisfied with the status quo. The outcome of the race for the 2009 Christmas number one is symptomatic of wider social change resulting from the rise of the social-networking generation. As sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace continue to grow in size and popularity the views of the public begin to play an increasingly prominent role in pop-culture affairs. This was evidenced by the fact that the campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to number one was started by a single person; Joe Morter, a 35 year old part-time DJ and logistics expert started the campaign as something of a joke. On December 15th he urged his Twitter following of over 260,000 individuals to eschew McElderry in favour of a song distinctly lacking in festive cheer entitled, 'Killing in the Name Of' – hardly a song in keeping with the pantheon of Christmas hits. In an interview after the announcement that Rage Against the Machine had claimed the Christmas top spot, Morter remarked: "it just shows that in this day and age, if you want to say something, then you can – with the help of the internet and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter." Morter's comments are incredibly timely, in the 21st century within seconds of the release of a single, bloggers can post up reviews which can serve either to make or break the song's success. Gracious in defeat, Cowell has responded with characteristic good grace, saying that those responsible for the campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to the top of the festive charts, "turned this into a very exciting race for the Christmas number one." The challenge for Cowell will be to see whether or not he can harness the power of this new medium to win back public favour for graduates of the X-Factor. Interestingly though, the 2009 battle for number one was in effect a win-win situation for Cowell, as the RATM track was released by Sony, and Joe McElderry's by Cowell's Syco, a Sony subsidiary – proof if ever it was needed that Cowell is nothing if not a canny businessman.

Regardless of the furore over the X-Factor Christmas single, it cannot be argued that Cowell is anything other than a dominant player in the UK music and television industry. Having only started his television career at 46, Cowell has achieved a phenomenal amount in a relatively short space of time. In the US, he is paid £15m a series for America's Got Talent – proof of the transatlantic appeal of the talent-show formula he has popularised. Cowell has gone on record many times saying that financial success is what drives him; if this is indeed the case then being named as the best paid man on prime-time television by Forbes must feel very good indeed. What makes Cowell's ambition all the more interesting is that he did not come from a disadvantaged background – quite the opposite in fact. Before he dropped out, he attended the prestigious Dover College independent school, and his father was a highly paid estate agent who looked after EMI's property portfolio. In fact, Cowell is living testament to the idea that personal drive and ambition need not only develop in the face of the adversity. One of the most important lessons that budding entrepreneurs can learn from Simon Cowell is that hard work and determination are essential for success – Cowell himself admits that, "I was always happier working than just mucking around." This was a quality drilled into him by his parents who always insisted that he earn his own spending money; in doing so, they instilled in Cowell a strong work ethic. Another quality demonstrated by Cowell which small businesses and start-ups should consider is the way he has handled setbacks in his career. Glancing back over the last twenty years or so, Cowell's journey from talent scout to media mogul has been far from smooth. In fact, his is a career which has weathered a number of setbacks and Cowell has bounced back every time. When his record label Fanfare failed in 1989 he only just avoided bankruptcy and was actually forced to sell his house and car and move back home to his parents. Far from deterring him, Cowell saw the incident as a blip on the radar and got straight back into the saddle taking up the position at BMG which would prove to be the stepping stone towards jaw dropping success.