Simon Cowell in battle with former colleagues in race to find new boy band as BBC launch hunt for K-Pop stars
SIMON COWELL has some healthy competition from his colleagues on the search for a new boy band.
The music mogul launched his search across the UK to find the next One Direction earlier this year as part of his new Netflix series.
But it seems he’s been pipped to the post by his own head of global entertainment Nigel Hall and former talent manager Russ Lindsay with their own BBC show.
The duo clubbed together to film new BBC show Made In Korea: The K-Pop Experience, in which they fly five young hopefuls from across the country out to Korea to form a K-Pop fusion band.
The series, which will launch later this month, follows the formation of boy band Dear Alice, which stars Reese Carter, 20, Blaise Noon, 19, Dexter Greenwood, 22, James Sharp, 23, and Olly Quinn, 20.
The group undergo three months of training at K-Pop industry giant SM Entertainment, where creative expert Hee Jun Yoon oversees the action in a way that makes “Simon look like Mary Poppins”.
Now, just months after their spring intensive in Seoul – the boys are being prepared for their big launch.
And Nigel and Russ are ready for the healthy competition it will bring with the BGT judge.
Nigel said: “For years, I had the privilege of putting what Simon saw in front of him.
“Right at the beginning of my career, we had Pop Stars: The Rivals and Girls Aloud, then we conquered the world with the lovely One Direction, and the lovely Susan Boyle.
“I have a sixth sense – my goosebump moment – where the hairs go up on the back of my hand and I know, ‘They’ve got it’ – and I genuinely had that from these lads.”
Russ agreed: “Simon’s show is only at the casting stage – we’re on TV in a matter of weeks, and we’ve both doing completely different things – we deliberately went for a group who can dance and sing.
“But you know what it’s like, it’s good to have three or four boy bands out there at once, because it just generates more interest back into boy bands, it’s not a negative.
“It’s great to have a little competition – and Simon, he’s always known a great tune and can spot a star.”
He added of Dear Alice: “It’s a bit of a swan song for me. We just wanted to get back into the music industry again, and One Direction was 16 years ago – it’s about time for a new boy band.
“The last episode of the series, they do a couple of big performances in front of a lot of people – one of them was a really, really big deal, and they did incredibly well.
“Since they’ve been back in the UK, from early June, they’ve been working every day with dance and singing lessons – they just want to get better and better, perform and have people watch them.
“We may well end up with a second spot on a tour with someone big, we might do some low-level gigs over the next two to three months after the show.
“If people fall in love with them, that would be amazing – because we’ve been waiting for the next One Direction to come along, and how nice is it to sit and talk about a new boy band?”
Made In Korea: The K-Pop Experience airs on the BBC later this month while Simon’s show, which has the early working title, Midas Touch, is still in production.