The X Factor axed

[all new Phil]

Not much to add that hasn’t already been said. I used to genuinely love the show. It’s impact has been huge - far bigger than it’s given credit for. For all the criticism of its polluting of the music scene, for a good few years it would literally account for about 50% of the top 40. It’s created so many household names.

I think they ultimately forgot how to make a good tv show. When it was bombastic it was great tv. It was brilliantly crafted by the very best in the business. Then something happened and they lost all confidence, they messed with the titles and music, and they tried too hard to cast characters and manipulate the outcome. They didn’t need to do any of this. As series went on, all I was craving was a back to basics series where all contestants were genuine auditionees who had a fair shot of winning. It was like they planned out the series before any of it was shot. I don’t know why.

I think Cowell is a pretty poor judge of what is working and what the fault is when things are going wrong. Scherzinger was a poor replacement for Minogue (who gets nowhere near enough credit for her contribution to the show). Nick Grimshaw and Rita Ora were unfairly scapegoated for the ratings of their series when they were actually really good. Cheryl isn’t the nation’s sweetheart like he seems to think. I agree that the rot set in when Cowell returned from his break from the show, the show had felt fresh with Barlow and co on the panel. It sounds silly but I still get goosebumps when I think of James Arthur and Ella Henderson in the sing-off together, it was absolutely gripping.

So yes, bittersweet for me but it’s right that the show is rested. It will return.

[sjames]

I can only echo what others have said. I was a huge X Factor fan back in the day, and see series 7, the year Matt Cardle won as the absolute peak of the show.

Over the years there were a number of things that ultimately harmed the show and brought on its downfall. The revolving door of judges, at the start so much was made of Simon, Sharon and Louis as long-time industry professionals who were using their knowledge to go up against each other. Fast forward a few years later when you have the likes of Nick Grimshaw and Tulisa, generally unliked by the public and then in the last series Ayda Field, who's got no music credibility apart from the fact she's married to Robbie Williams, it kind of makes a mockery of the show. Then all the attempts to freshen up the show with arena auditions then going back to room auditions, then back to arenas again just bloated the show. The removal of the deadlock and introduction of the prize fight, was weird, and other changes which might be there for a couple of weeks and then never mentioned again, all made the show confusing.

Having a celebrity series in 2018 was one of the final nails, because after the previous 'Battle of the Stars' series where Simon said afterwards 'he'd never do it again', made the whole thing look desperate. The Band series that followed, wasn't too bad, but it was just too late and felt rushed.

There's no reason though why X Factor couldn't be revived in a few years time, as long as they strip it right back to the basics. Look at American Idol for example, they made a big deal of a farewell season in 2015, only for it to be revived 3 years on a different channel. Ryan Seacrest remains but a different panel of judges, room auditions, but with many auditionees playing live instruments. I've always found the live shows of Idol have a better atmosphere with having a live band (similar to the ALW casting shows), and proved to be a successful reboot.

Instead of Lionel Richie, Katy Perry, and Luke Bryan, maybe if we had a line-up featuring a combination of Anne-Marie, one of the Spice Girls, a rapper like Craig David, Adam Lambert, Tom Fletcher (from McFly) and for an elder statesmen, I would have said George Michael before he died, and Tom Jones is busy with The Voice, so perhaps someone like Elton John or Rod Stewart? That could work to freshen things up?

[Steve Williams]

I think they ultimately forgot how to make a good tv show. When it was bombastic it was great tv. It was brilliantly crafted by the very best in the business. Then something happened and they lost all confidence, they messed with the titles and music, and they tried too hard to cast characters and manipulate the outcome. They didn’t need to do any of this. As series went on, all I was craving was a back to basics series where all contestants were genuine auditionees who had a fair shot of winning. It was like they planned out the series before any of it was shot. I don’t know why.

I would agree with this, probably. I only ever watched the first series of The X Factor, and I found it all pretty disappointing, because I loved Pop Idol so much. The first series of Pop Idol was brilliant, and as I've said before one thing that used to be great about it was how honest it was, it felt like a show that was on the side of the audience, so when Rik Waller got a bye because of illness (of course, he never came back), they discussed this on air and invited the audience to ask questions of the judges and it was a bit of a novelty to have a show that would happily debate these things on air. Popstars did it too, when nobody turned up to an audition, they mentioned it.

So it was a bit sad to see The X Factor become increasingly contrived. You can't argue it didn't have a huge impact on light entertainment, though, because about twenty years ago it felt like the golden age of Saturday night telly was over and instead of the variety spectaculars of the past the best you got were low budget shows like Friends Like These with distinctly modest ambitions and mediocre ratings. Then The X Factor seemed to be a bit of a throwback in how it had a huge set and it shouted about everything and overstated its importance and boasted about its high ratings. Of course, the problem with the latter is that you have to keep getting high ratings or you're no longer impressing, and you lose the right when the ratings fall to say "Oh, the ratings are down because of X, Y and Z but the show is better than ever" when you've previously said they were the be-all and end-all.

As you say, by the end they didn't seem to go five minutes without some kind of row. In many ways this was a side-effect of it ratcheting up the tension which meant that some ridiculous triviality would be overblown to ludicrous levels, and of course we were now in the era when people could now complain at the touch of a button. I mean, there's this whole page of Wikipedia on its "controversy", and so much of it is just so pointless - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controvers...TV_series)
The bit about Treyc Cohen is a great example, saying "However, Cheryl refused to vote against either of them, causing presenter Dermot O'Leary to remind her of her duty as a judge." It's a bit of light entertainment on the telly! It doesn't matter! But that was the problem with them hyping everything up to the umpteenth degree, people start taking it too seriously, both at home and on the show, and it starts becoming a bit unpleasant to watch.

It's quite amusing to see how often Cowell was praised for going "look, we've listened to the audience and so we're going to change this" and reversing whatever rubbish decision they've made, or saying at the start of the next series that this one is "back to basics". Doing that once or twice is commendable, but if you're doing it every other week, there's no credit for that. It just makes you look like you're panicking and you're desperately throwing mud at the wall to see if anything sticks.

I always felt sorry for Dermot O'Leary, I know he got absolutely loads of money for doing it, but it seemed a bit of a thankless job, he had to do so much fire-fighting and papering over the cracks, and I always squirmed with embarrassment when he had to do the umpteenth apology for swearing, cock-ups or someone being kicked out for "reasons beyond on control". I also thought it didn't do his credibility very much good, given the rest of the time he was supposed to be a credible music broadcaster.

But this is the problem with shouting about being the biggest show on TV, you've got to keep at the top or you're not longer impressing.

[Keith]

As others have mentioned by comparison the likes of Strictly and BGT have stayed strong by broadly remaining the same, and making changes incrementally in a way that feels like a more natural evolution. Whilst BGT had a brief wobble in terms of changes of judges (Hoff & McIntyre) in 2011 which changed again after one series the judging panel has had relatively few changes. The only notable format change I can think of for BGT was the addition of the 'golden buzzer'. Similarly with Strictly their judging panel has only changed gradually, and format changes such the addition of the 'couples choice' dance have felt like relatively minor changes.

By contrast with the X-Factor there have been several changes to the panel of judges, including the multiple times Louis Walsh was 'sacked' before making a return. Similarly the format changes in terms of rounds have change significantly, which appear to have even affected the format of the live shows. (I'd long stopped watching by the time 'deadlock' was removed.) There have been many other examples from TV history where a programme has made lots of major changes to its format/content in the final series, which have effectively been a final roll of the dice (e.g. Krypton Factor, House Party).

[Brekkie]

I think they ultimately forgot how to make a good tv show. When it was bombastic it was great tv. It was brilliantly crafted by the very best in the business.

I think in the end they actually tried too hard to make good TV and the micro-mangemenet of the series was ultimately it's downfall. They became too focused on making the TV show at the expense of what the focus of the TV show was meant to be about - finding stars, and it just felt more and more contrived as the years went on.

I'm sure it'll return or a new talent format will emerge in the next few years. It'll be interesting to see how long The Voice continues as it's never hit the heights of The X Factor, both in terms of ratings or come anywhere near close to create a breakout star, but by never hit those heights it isn't deemed to have the fall from grace either.

[Mateus Honrado]

As a fan of the show, I can't say I'm surprised about the news, given the declining ratings in recent years, being beaten by Strictly, later winners not being successful as people hoped as well as ITV turning their focus on The Masked Singer and The Voice now becoming their flagship singing talent show.

While I'm sad that it's ending, I had a good feeling that it was going to end soon, given that the last series overall was The Band and it did badly in the ratings and IMHO, the last good series was series 8.