There's no doubt that high-trouser Sauron Simon Cowell is adept at getting the great British public to sit politely on their sofas in front of the telly while he pumps them for money and bile. However, we're willing to bet that the man knows next to sod all about how DJing works. Indeed, Cowell's pronouncement that "DJ's are the new rock stars, it feels like the right time to make this show," suggests that the man is living in some kind of 90s time warp. As we all know, electronic and club music is in rude health at the moment, but the age of the superstar DJ is, for now, over.

Yet he's such a canny, ruthless bugger that one imagines the whole dastardly plot is already fully thought through. It's troubling, then, to consider what exactly Cowell might have in mind for this new series. Perhaps "DJ's are the new rock stars" suggests Cowell's thinking about the kind of celebrity stick-cans-on-me-noggin and whack out some """"dubstep"""" gramophone technicians one imagines that he encounters at LA parties.

The as-yet-untitled programme will be produced by Cowell and actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who has previous musical form as part of metal group Wicked Wisdom. It's fair to say that the dance music community has reacted unfavourably to the news, thundering away on Twitter and Facebook. Mike Skinner was especially voluble, writing "definately gonna enter cowell's new DJ idol show. gonna bring my mum and talk about how my dad told me to follow my dreams before he died... and i hope they play that take that instrumental in the background. the one that get's you all emotional and that... then I walk out with headphones and my CD's, stick them into the MK3's and he asks me if I've got what it takes before the room falls silent"