'The X Factor' Firing Fallout: Here's How Simon Cowell Can Make It Right

You may have already heard about the "bloodbath" over at Fox's "The X Factor," as Simon Cowell and his producers decided to fire Nicole Scherzinger, Paula Abdul and Steve Jones all at once, freeing up the hosting job and two seats at the mentors' table.

While there's no arguing that Scherzinger needed to go, as her inability to say anything to anger the crowd lead to empty praise and eventually the departure of Rachel Crow, firing Jones and Abdul may have been a bit excessive. Jones was awkward at times, but who isn't in that job? Even the mighty Seacrest has a few cringeworthy moments. And as for Abdul, while she was ineffectual as a judge and a mentor, it wasn't to the extent of Scherzinger's uselessness.

What it really comes down to is this: Cowell was (naively) fully expecting an audience of about 20 million each week in the show's first season. And why not? The show had a five million dollar prize, and the winner got to be in a Pepsi commercial during the Super Bowl, a point that was reiterated innumerable times on the show.

So when viewership fell well short of that, Cowell had to shake things up in the offseason. Knowing his attitude toward "The X Factor" (as evidenced by the ridiculously ostentatious stage, with its two-story-high LCD screens), Cowell will likely take the "bigger is better" approach and attempt to get even bigger stars to sit at the mentors' table... Mariah Carey's name has been bandied about.

But that's not the right thing to do. The reason the first season didn't work is that it wasn't genuine. Abdul was noticeably dismayed that she had to coach the Groups, and Scherzinger took every opportunity to steal the spotlight from her contestants, rather than giving them the spotlight. Putting in a bigger star will only make things worse: it will be even less about the contestants, and they will continue to say only smiling, supportive things.

Case in point: L.A. Reid is not a superstar. Most people didn't know who he was before this show started. He's still around, though, because he knew what he was talking about, and wasn't afraid to give some actual criticism (it was still very light criticism, but hey, take what you can get). Reid is still there because he did his job.

So if Cowell is going to salvage this mess, he's going to have to do it the hard way: finding two mentors who will give honest criticism and will be unafraid of being booed (because honestly, who cares?), rather than just bankrolling the biggest name he can get to agree to this circus.