Cowell's televised talent competitions are among the commercial channel's biggest draws, generating millions of pounds in advertising income and helping it compete with rival BBC's increasingly aggressive reality TV drive.
According to Tom Bower, whose unauthorized biography of Cowell has been serialized this week in the Sun tabloid and hits the shelves on Friday, ITV bosses failed to respect Cowell and properly appreciate what he had done for the channel.
"He (Bower) admitted revelations in his book ... risked pushing to crisis point relations between the station and the man behind their most successful shows," the Sun reported.
The newspaper valued the multi-year partnership at 100 million pounds ($160 million).
But Max Clifford, Cowell's publicist, played down any rift.
"Simon and ITV have had a very close and hugely successful relationship for many years," he told Reuters, when asked about Bower's comments.
"Inevitably they don't agree on everything all the time, but the overall situation is as healthy, good and mutually beneficial as it's ever been."
ITV, which has signed up both shows until 2013, issued a statement in response to the reports.
"We're continuing to work closely with Simon and the production teams to ensure that the shows are the very best they possibly can be and we are looking forward to the remainder of the run and the exciting week of live shows."
Bower says he became fascinated by the story of a middle-aged music producer who struck gold by turning the old-fashioned talent contest into a slick 21st-century phenomenon — and in the process earned a fortune estimated at 200 million pounds ($320 million) by the Sunday Times Rich List.
The book paints a picture of a man who struggled for years in the music business, spurred on to success out of a desire to prove his detractors wrong.
"He had 20 years — more than 20 years — of humiliation," Bower said. "At school he was a total failure and as a music producer he was a total failure.
"But what he did have was charm and an ability to understand the music business because of all this failure."
"Sweet Revenge," published in the U.S. by Ballantine Books on Tuesday, is billed as the first book about Cowell written with the mogul's participation — though not his authorization. Bower spent many hours with Cowell aboard his private jet, at his Los Angeles home and on his yacht in the south of France and the Caribbean.
But he says Cowell told some friends and associates not to talk to him. Writing the book became "a cat and mouse game" between him and his subject.
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