Am I right in thinking that there has never been such a large percentage win by an act on UK X factor/Pop Idol after critics, bookies etc hotly tipped the other finalist for most of the week prior to the final? I can't think of one. I know that bookies odds , critics favourites have changed a lot in advance of previous finals but I'm pretty sure that in all the other cases either the final percentage results were much closer or the runner up act hadn't received such tipping to win throughout most of final week. Obviously Will and Gareth was seen as a shock by some but their results were only a few percent apart. Ben won by more than 20% despite Fleur being hot favourite for most of the early part of last week.

I think one contestant might have been joe mcelderry who had over 60% of the vote

She was never a *hot* favourite with the bookies though - they were neck and neck throughout most of the week until Sunday when his odds drastically shortened to 1/12.

Really he wasn't a hot favourite either until the final as until then whilst he had topped, it was only by 1-2% so realistically he could still be caught up.

By the time the final arrived it was game, set and match to Ben

Aye Joe and Steve had over 60% of the vote in their respective series.

Alexandra had 58%.

I guess if we were able to just look at the % between Ben and Fleur on Sunday (without Andrea's votes) we could compare more

Knew about Joe and Steve's percentages being slightly higher but I am pretty sure that in both of those years there definitely wasn't anywhere near the tipping of G4 or Olly Murrs to win early in the week prior to the final. Could be wrong though! Also, I know the bookies odds changed on Saturday but up until Saturday morning Fleur had been well ahead on odds since the Sunday before.

She was never well ahead, she was ahead, but to be honest it was neck and neck between them oddswise in the run up to the shows.

They were pretty close a lot of the time

From X Factor 7, the figures are from voting freezes so no actual Final 2 %. They are freezes with 3 in the running.

Pop Idol:
Will- 53%, Gareth- 47%
Pop Idol 2:
Michelle- 58%, Sam- 42%
X Factor 1 and 2- Unknown ??
X Factor 3:
Leona- 60%, Ray- 40%
X Factor 4- ??
X Factor 5:
Alexandra-58%, JLS- 42%
X Factor 6:
Joe- 61%, Olly- 39%
X Factor 7:
Matt- 44.6%, Rebecca- 38.63% (don't add up to 100% as this was during freeze in final as with the following series)
X Factor 8:
Little Mix- 48.2%, Marcus- 42.8%
X Factor 9:
James- 53.7%, Marcus- 38.9% (Christopher- 7.4%)
X Factor 10:
Sam- 53.5%, Nicholas- 36.3% (Luke- Around 10%)
X Factor 11:
Ben- 57.2%, Fleur- 34.3%

So I'd say counting Final 2 and freezes that Ben actually triumphed with the biggest majority with 23% higher than 2nd place. With Joe beating Olly second as he was ahead 22%.

Im very shocked when looking at those stats because I thought it would be a lot closer between Ben and Fleur but it wasnt.

Yes I'm surprised at the figures too. I wanted Ben to win although I liked both him and Fleur and would have been happy to see her win also. I thought Ben would win but was expecting very close figures ala Will and Gareth/ Shane and Andy. In the end it was closest to a landside there's been really. By looks of it he actually beat Fleur in percentages by a higher amount than Leona over Ray Quinn and Sam over Nicholas McDonald!! Makes you wonder whether the judges really do have the voting figures to hand as if they had they would have known there was a fair chance he had it in the bag well in advance. If they do you wonder whether they were simply trying to make the final seem like more of a competition than it ever was by showing such clear support for Fleur until the last song

I was surprised as well but very happy Ben won but now I understand why everything was pro Fleur for the last couple of weeks.

Ben won the most votes because he WAS most popular during XF, whether he sells as much as the votes remains to be seen, the public are fickle as all the male XF winners have found out. I hope for his sake he does well.

Yeah, the stats I posted also shows Ben had either:

a) gained the most fans throughout the series in XF history
b) gained all the fans from eliminated contestants (might note that he started polling the most % from W4 onwards, the week after best friend Jake was eliminated). I'm guessing most of Jake's voters went to Ben rather than his own boys category (Jack, Paul or Andrea)

Because when you look at other winners (eg. Joe, Sam, Matt), they all at one point or another dominated weeks and were far ahead of their competitors. When looking at this years stats, Ben (even when he was topping), he wasn't topping by much at the start, but as weeks went past, his support went into overdrive. People like Matt had a strong fanbase from the beginning, his W1 % was high. Ben came from nowhere, so he supposedly gained a huge amount of support from W1 live shows to the final... he had 8.7% in Week 1 and then got 57% in the final for a 3 way vote. That is a massive upswing.