The Daily Star are today claiming that ITV may be looking to replace their Saturday night megahit the X Factor.

The last series was deemed by many to have been a relative disappointment and, with Simon Cowell again missing from this year’s judging panel, it looks like there are plenty of people around ready to sound the death knell for the show.

The paper are quoting a ‘senior ITV source’ as saying: “Every television network is always looking for the next big thing. They’d be crazy not to. X Factor has had a brilliant run, but no show lasts for ever. Over the past few years Simon Cowell has been the main source for many of our top hits but some feel that we’ve got too many eggs in one basket and we’ve become too reliant on one man.”

Scrap a show that is still raking far more money than it costs to produce AND risk the ire of Cowell, one of TV’s most successful moguls? Seems a bit unlikely. We think it’s far to early to write the show off.