Simon Cowell is a long-time music-industry impresario whose company has the right of first refusal to sign canadian American Idol contestants to recording contracts. He says the ailing music industry has to become thinner and meaner to survive. "I think you have to be much leaner, I think you need less staff, and I think you have to concentrate more on the talent and the songs than you do on promotion and marketing," said the infamously blunt American Idol judge. (Winnipeg Sun)