The instant built-in audience for the winners is enormous, so if even a fraction of viewers download a new single or buy a CD, it's an enormous amount of sales. It's a huge payday for the artist and the label.

Maybe 10 or 12 popular artists have been introduced into popular music since the show's debut, and it's only four seasons in.

She's a star in her own right -- launched by the show -- but has proven herself on her own. She proved with (her) second album, she has far more as an artist to her than flash-in-the-pan success.

I'm making films for an audience out there and a very tiny fraction of them are would-be filmmakers. But let's speak of them-the would-be filmmakers, the tiny fraction. I've witnessed many times when I've showed films and was present at a screening that exactly those people feel very much encouraged by what I'm doing.

I think it's an incredibly bold and original show. And if only a small fraction of the loyal audience that's on Fox came to Showtime, it would be one of our highest-rated shows.

So, there is enormous instability in the global economy with a shift of winners and losers.