Breaking News: Simon Leaving “Idol”

It’s official, kids. This will be Simon Cowell’s final season on “American Idol.”

Simon made the announcement today during the Television Critics Association Tour. He is leaving in order to concentrate on bringing his British smash, “The X Factor,” to FOX in the fall of 2011.

And you read that correctly, that means we’ll go an entire 16 months without Simon Cowell on our TVs…

I’ll have MUCH more on this later…