Only Leona, Alexandra and Little Mix have excelled as winners, One Direction only came third but have still achieved global success so where do you think Ella would be today had she won X Factor.

Yeah she might end up another invisible winner because she will be pushed to sing song that isnt her own style for their debut X Factor single then lead up to rush album which won't be half of Chapter One amazingness.

I'm glad that she didn't win cuz I really like her debut album, the best one by X Factor alum so far !!!

I doubt it would make any difference. The list of acts who have had the most success post-XF correlates pretty closely to the acts who have the most money thrown at them by Cowell because ultimately it's the material that makes the success. Ella would probably have had exactly the same investment as a winner as she did a loser as she was always earmarked by Syco. Meanwhile some winners get barely any investment (Sam and Joe, for instance)

Hard to know as would she of been able to take her time making her debut album as a winner or would they of rushed out an album as if rushed out an album she may of never ended up with say ghost

Finishing sixth was the best thing that could have happened to her. Being tied to SYCO is a nightmare for the majoirty of the winners.

The success of contestants has nothing to do with where they finish in the show, it's to do with signing with Syco and how much of a puppet they are willing to be.

One Direction received $20 million of promotion in their first couple of years to make them big.

Little Mix were tagged onto 1d to get them media attention. Plus loads of behind the scenes deals to get their music on shows such as Glee and on charity songs. Salute is now coming up to 100 plays in the Talk Talk sponsorship ad that has played at the breaks in this series.

The single Leona released without Syco backing struggled to break the top 200.

Then we get all the other Syco acts constantly forced onto the public as "guest performers". Olly, Cheryl, One Direction etc

Any other contestants outside of this fake media bubble struggle for sales because they don't receive the media attention that Syco acts do.

Sadly yes, as she wouldn't have been able to do her own thing which is undoubtedly a million times better than the crappy material she'd have been given to work with otherwise!

Everyone wants to win, but from what I've seen it's a short victory!

You have summed it up very well really. Finishing from second place down to sixth is probably better than winning in the long run.

This is nonsense. She's still signed to Syco. Simon still calls the shots. Her album is still largely written by other people. She was always going to be signed, in all likelihood before she even stepped into her 'audition'. The XF was supposed to be her launch, that's all.

It will all end badly. She's signed to Syco at the end of the day. She's only on her first album. Syco are fantastic at launching an artist, but that's it. They have no artists on their books who they have had long term. Nobody they've developed.

If it just came down to money then the music business would be in great shape and anyone could run a label. The fact is that Ella, whether she finished first or sixth, was always going to have access to great producers because she was very good. Syco or no Syco, Ryan Tedder was never going to produce for Matt Cardle.

1D didn't get $20m of promotion (if that's accurate) to make them big. They got $20m because they were big. They put a lot into What Makes You Beautiful and when that blew up, coupled with the fan support worldwide and pre-orders, they knew they were onto a winner. Put money into the labels pockets and they'll put money into the artist. If your first single bombs (particularly if you're releasing it off the back of a major TV show) then it's very hard to justify throwing more money down the drain.

Had Ghost flopped, Ella wouldn't have the kind of backing she has now. Simon Cowell alone doesn't decide budgets for the US - he needs to get Columbia to support him and with Ella they have. His clout helps but as my point above, even Simon Cowell would never be able to land Joe McElderry a US deal. Labels, however good and however powerful, need something to work with.

I think Ella was always well placed to be successful after the show but she possibly benefitted from distancing herself from a controversial series (won by James Arthur!) and having more time to figure out her path and work on the album (particularly as she's quite young). It seems to be paying off at this point. But as is the case for every new artist, she will need another hit single.

You really do not need hit singles all of the time to do well. There are many huge artitsts that never get anywhere near the charts, but are very successful. Just for examples Erykah Badu, Gregory Porter, and Jill Scott.

This is spot on!!!

It's amazing how many people still don't see through the con.

I don't really agree with BIB. One Direction were as manufactured as you can get - none of them ever even INTENDED to be in a band; even more so than bands like S Club or the Spice Girls where the members saw an ad in the paper for band auditions and wanted to be in a band so went along.

One Direction when they debuted were five attractive lads who'd just had a stint on the (at the time) biggest show in the UK where they were big-upped by the producers and Simon every week, who Simon Cowell deliberately put together seeing pound signs, and who were signed right after because that had always been the plan. They were then given an album of songs written largely by other people, fashionable clothes, tickets to awards shows and film premieres for publicity and all they had to do was smile, sing the songs they were given and try not to offend anyone. Sure, they've worked hard, got in shape, and kept on top of their game since then but in musical terms they started off with a silver spoon in their mouths.

They didn't get $20 million 'because they were big' as if they were big naturally. Everything and the kitchen sink was thrown at them from day 1 in order to give them the best possible chance of becoming big for at least one single/album release. They've built on it, sure, but the for the first stages that backing was incredibly helpful, arguably essential.

I'm not talking about them receiving $20million. This was the amount spent by their record company promoting them in America, buying up media spots, doing deals with tv companies and other media outlets. There were even payments to performing arts students to bulk up crowds as "screaming female fans" to create the One Direction mania.

One Direction were loss making in the first three years due to costs. It wasn't until their merchandise took off that they became profitable.

Prior to this, they had been hyped in the UK. Do you really think they would have succeeded if they hadn't received any airplay in the past 3 years?

The same goes with Ella. She was given the massive promo spot on the BGT final and was given massive airplay on Heart, BBC stations etc. She would have been lucky to scrape the Top 40 without the promo.

Cheryl and 1d's recent performances prove that no talent is required to succeed in the current music business. Just loads of connections. And this is what Cowell has been working on in America in the past few years. He now has enough connections, influence and money to get the sound of a blocked toilet being flushed to a massive number two.

Simon had producers and writers working on material for 1D before the first first live show had even taken place. It would be extremely naive to think that similar amounts of money weren't already being spent on marketing/astroturfing/justinbieberlevelsoffaketwitterprofiles etc to help create a market to release that material into.

He took a punt, their efforts gained some traction, and it paid off for him, but they really had to drag that band through to the final.

I'm not talking about them receiving $20m either - I'm talking about investment. There was money behind What Makes You Beautiful for sure - but it wasn't the most expensive launch ever. When that hit and the whole 1D mania started to catch on (fuelled by the labels of course), the money really started to flow in.


With respect, this is rubbish. I'd love to see a credible source for it.

Sony Music quarterly and annual reports repeatedly mention 1D and their albums as boosting their numbers, not as some massive liability. If boybands took 3 years to get off the ground Simon Cowell would be bankrupt - considering the life span for boybands is little more than 3 years.


Of course they were hyped up. And of course they needed airplay.


She did the BGT semi final which is a good slot, but no bigger than being on Children in Need last night. And yes she got airplay - because stations bought into her and the song.

Trying to get artists onto playlists is one of the main challenges for a label. It doesn't just happen and it isn't Syco or Sony's to "give".

I've never denied that artists need promo to chart well. It's essential for a high charting single.

I won't be able to find a source as it was a few years ago but Syco were already profitable and were making a large percentage of Sony's overall profits from tv, advertising and other artists. I'm sure the last 10-12 quarters show that they contribute a large amount to Sony's bottom line but this wasn't always the case.

BGT is more likely to create sales as it is a target audience, large sections of the public now watch it as their main music source, and viewers will be a crossover from TXF and will remember Ella.

Children in Need is more of a showcase show. It will give publicity and help create sales but not as overtly as TXF (except for the charity single).

Playlists aren't created by looking for the best songs but by the level of publicity the corporation can promise. If you have a great single from an independent singer or an average auto-tuned song from Sony, major radio stations are more likely to play the big label track. This is because the station can then show themselves as credible for backing another big hit.

I agree that it's not just these few artists but the level of artists who receive mass media is heavily restricted by the industry and they are having an ever greater say in who does well and who doesn't.

I really don't think Leona has excelled as a winner.. dont get me wrong she has sold lots of records etc but with her voice she should be doing a whole lot more.