Judging Simon's Finger

The American Idol judge is the latest star to be screen-grabbed in the act of a reputed obscene gesture by the Drudge Report.

The news and gossip site on Wednesday posted blown-up frames from Tuesday night's Idol, frames showing Cowell's middle finger apparently doing what middle fingers aren't supposed to do on network television: Flipping the bird.

The Website said Cowell's extended middle finger "came during a heated exchange with fellow judge Paula Abdul." A check of the tape, though, shows Cowell's offending digit came into camera view on two occasions, neither of which involved Abdul, and neither of which involved a "heated exchange."

And besides, Cowell might argue, sometimes a middle finger is just a middle finger--except, of course, in Britain (from whence he hails) where the middle finger is actually the ol' "two-finger salute."

"I certainly would never make a gesture [um, the American middle finger] like that toward Paula on national television," the harsh taskmaster said in a statement Wednesday. "Sometimes I lean on my index finger. Sometimes a different finger. Sometimes two at the same time, or, God help me, even the whole hand."

Cowell's active paw drifted into dicey middle-finger territory once as he rested his head on it while listening to contestant Fantasia Barrino sass him for urging her not to "become old." The finger made one other appearance--in the form of an apparent scratch--during an innocuous exchange with teen crooner John Stevens.

Tuesday's two-hour Idol, in which the 11 remaining pop-star hopefuls went country, was watched by an estimated 27 million--the most-watched Tuesday night in Fox's history, the network said.

To be fair, the Drudge Report wasn't the only entity to notice or question Cowell's finger. The Federal Communications Commission said it received two calls of complaint. (By comparison, the broadcast watchdog received "tens of thousands" the day after the Janet Jackson breast incident, a rep said.) And at least one poster on the Idol newsgroup, alt.tv.american-idol, asked if Cowell was "giving [Barrino] the finger?"

"He sits like that quite a bit," another Netizen replied. "I don't know that it was intentional, but it should have been."

The Drudge Report quoted an unnamed Fox executive as saying the network itself was flummoxed by Cowell's finger. "It appeared he was simply resting his head on his middle finger, but now I think we made a mistake," the source told the site. "The gesture should not have aired."

Fox did not specifically comment on the Drudge story, which included a mention that Cowell has been asked by producers to mind his finger manners on future shows.

The G-rated Idol airs live on the East Coast--standard five-second time delay notwithstanding. It airs on tape delay in other time zones, and did not appear to be edited for those regions on Tuesday.

Robert J. Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, caught Tuesday's show, but didn't catch Cowell's finger. He wondered if anybody who did should be worried by it.

"The idea of searching for covert middle fingers in television--the juvenile level of this is getting almost unbearable," Thompson said.

Broadcasters have been skittish about what body parts make air since Jackson unveiled a nipple shield during February's Super Bowl--an incident that the Drudge Report helped preserve and propagate with (natch) blown-up pictures of the exposed breast.

The professor, for one, found no reason to take Cowell's gesture and/or resting finger personally.

Said Thompson: "Simon Cowell metaphorically has been giving us all the middle finger since the day he appeared on television."

Cowell's Idol foil Ryan Seacrest, meanwhile, had his own TV troubles Tuesday, partially blacking out and eventually cutting short an appearance by former supermodel Janice Dickinson on his daytime infotainment show, On Air with Ryan Seacrest.

"It was just insane," a rep with On Air said of the Dickinson segment.

The erstwhile catwalker started off her chat time by sitting on Seacrest's lap and teasing, "Excuse me, I feel something rising." Over the next five minutes, she touched her breasts, inquired as to her host's bedroom nickname and put her head between Seacrest's legs--the last bit causing the live show to cut to a "Please Stand By" card, and prompting Seacrest to pull the plug on the interview.

"We are not afraid to walk the line," Seacrest said in a statement. "But we don't want to cross it."

The rep noted it's unlikely Dickinson will ever be asked back.

Dickinson, for her part, didn't sound too broken up, telling the New York Post, "These West Coast guys can't handle the Alpha Dog."

The Alpha Dog was on On Air to plug Tuesday night's season finale of America's Next Top Model

In the end, the UPN series did okay, but not great, in its hourlong sendoff opposite the second half of Idol. The show, which crowned Yoanna House as our next great poser, ran second to Idol in key demographics. Total viewership, however, was off. About 5.9 million tuned in to watch pretty girls, down from the show's season-to-date average of 6.3 million.