Simon Cowell has shared his biggest regret when it comes to boyband One Direction (
Image: PA)

Simon Cowell has revealed his one regret about One Direction.

The music mogul, 64, admitted he made a big mistake in never buying the band’s name. Simon said he was “naive” to leave ownership of the title with Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik. And he explained the move could prevent a reunion tour in the future if just one member wasn’t on board.

Recalling a conversation with the band after they were put together on X Factor, he said: “I remember saying: ‘Our goal is for you to have enough hits that if you ever reform, you will have enough hits to do stadium tours’. So you need about 10 hit singles.”

Asked if they would ever reform, he replied: “I doubt it. The one thing I regret is, I should have kept the name. I should have owned the name. Who owns it? They do, that’s the problem. When you give the artist the name, it’s not yours, so if you’re listening, I’ll buy it back from you… we can do it as a partnership. If they own the name, if one of the band members doesn’t want to tour, it could stop the others. If I own the name, it’s not a problem.”

Speaking on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast, Simon went on to say he is driven to replicate 1D’s success. And after announcing this month a new talent search, he admitted he would have regretted not launching new auditions. But he admitted that for the band members he chooses at the end of the hunt “there is no safety net.”

He explained: “I’m doing it because right now there isn’t a band as good as One Direction, and hasn’t been a band as good as One Direction since One Direction, in my opinion. Look at the amount of solo artists versus bands, it’s unbelievable. And the only way I know to make a band is to have auditions, and this time we are going to document it all.

“This time you’ll see everything that happens, but there’s no safety blanket on this. I haven’t been to a record label, and said: ‘Will you give them a record deal’, we have to hope they’re good enough to get a record deal.”