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"Fox chiefs have confirmed that they are keen to secure Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell for future seasons of American Idol. Abdul recently admitted that she is considering &amp;quot;moving on&amp;quot; from the network&amp;#039;s talent competition to pursue other projects. Meanwhile, Cowell has hinted that next year&amp;#039;s ninth season could be his last - especially if ratings for the programme continue to drop. Idol is currently averaging 26.3m viewers per episode, which is a fall of 8% from last year&amp;#039;s figures.  However, speaking to Reuters, Fox&amp;#039;s president of alternative programming Mike Darnell insisted: &amp;quot;Idol at the moment is the most dominant it has ever been.&amp;quot; On Abdul and Cowell&amp;#039;s future, he added: &amp;quot;It is our hope and my personal wish that both of them stay for as long as the show is on.&amp;quot; Lil Rounds and Anoop Desai were both eliminated from the reality series earlier this week. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/american-idol/news/a153966/idol-eager-to-keep-abdul-cowell/>