"The X Factor" judges didn't want to stop listening to Melanie Amaro.

Simon Cowell acknowledges that he regrets saying ratings less than 20 million for the U.S. version of "The X Factor" would be a failure. The show's September debut earned 12.5 million viewers.

The debut of Simon Cowell's "The X Factor" played second fiddle to "Modern Family." On a competitive night of fall debuts, Fox's singing contest kicked off Wednesday with a total audience of 12.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen Co. ratings.

It was a day of hellos and goodbyes on the red carpet at Sunday's Emmy Awards, as first-time nominees mingled with veteran actors and stars of nominated shows that have since been canceled, such as "Friday Night Lights" and "Entourage."

Besides a recording contract, the winning singer or singers will receive a $5 million cash prize and be featured in a Super Bowl commercial for Pepsi.

Jennifer Lopez may come back for a second year as a judge on "American Idol." Or she may not. "You know, this is the question of the hour. I don't know, I don't know," Lopez said Tuesday in an interview with Scott Mills of the BBC.

At auditions before a live audience for "The X Factor," Simon Cowell sounded like he wanted people to move on from the recent shakeup on the show's judges panel replacing British pop singer Cheryl Cole with American pop singer Nicole Scherzinger.

British sweetheart Cheryl Cole has reportedly been dumped from U.S. television, and tabloid media say she lost her big break in part over fears American audiences wouldn't understand her regional accent or the phrases unique to her corner of Britain.

"We're still in the honeymoon phase, which will probably only last another minute," the 48-year-old Abdul told reporters in Singapore.

An Air France jet carrying 228 people stalled before plunging from 38,000 feet and crashing into the Atlantic Ocean in less than four minutes, accident investigators said Friday.

While the ways to experience television have changed dramatically over the past decade with DVDs, digital video recorders and Internet streaming, the brutally inefficient ways of making it have not. There's little incentive to alter things.