...make the producers and Simon think twice about heavily favouring certain acts and therefore engineering the downfall of other acts who once stood a chance at winning?

To go from the first 11 XF winners bagging a #1 over the festive period to the 12th winner limping in at #9, I think there's more to it than song choice and the choice of winner. I think a lot of viewers finally saw the manipulation last series and therefore it created a backlash.

Hopefully this year (I'm probably hoping in vain) the commercially viable acts who do well in the first public vote will be celebrated rather than derailed.

None of them would have done well with that song. It was an awful choice, especially the arrangements of the two versions we heard.

There was also the change of chart week and the inclusion of streaming, both recent changes, that meant the song - whoever released it - had a major disadvantage over past winners.

In terms of raw numbers, Louisa sold 35,651 copies Sun-Fri while Justin sold 47,546 copies at No1 Fri-Fi. Had Louisa had the extra 2+ days it would've been pretty close, if not Louisa ahead on sales alone at least.

Based on the stats, Louisa was topping the vote from the very first show anyway so was always popular and the only act who could've possibly beaten her would've been RnB who's winner's song was even worse.

It wouldn't surprise me if people finally saw the manipulation.
I'm not usually one to believe conspiracy theories, though there has always been producer preference, last year was so insultingly blatant. Maybe people have decided that enough is enough.
And plus, reducing manipulation will only boost viewing figures - it's more engaging watching an open contest than a completely engineered one.

Plus all the press re. coming number 9 is gonna give her an uphill struggle to do well with her album. They really did make wrong decisions in every facet of XF 2015.

Just because she got number 9 with a cover single it says nothing about her future career in music - why are press and certain forum members so quick to label someone a flop when their career hasn't even taken off. Totally baffles me

For the record a top 10 single is amazing! Plenty of artists now a days would love to get that! As if she was going to be number 1 with songs in the top 10 like Love Yourself, Sorry, Hello Sax and History all hogging the top 5, was never going to happen.

Lots of things need to be taken into consideration, her performance of the song was good but the song itself was dated and miserable.

because success is all about marketing and after the amount of publicity she had to fail so badly is nothing else but a flop

an x factor winner's single could usually be 3 minutes of them making rude noises with their armpit and it would go to #1 for the simple reason it was the x factor winner's single, the quality of the song has usually been irrelevant

i do agree we need to wait to see what original material they come up with for her but in an industry which is pretty ruthless and an age where reputations matter more than ever, overcoming the stigma of an unsuccessful winner's single isn't going to be easy

Last year was a particularly crap series with low ratings and loss of buzz.

People may not have invested in the winner single but may be prepared to invest in her actual material which is believable for the artist herself.

If she gets a new song and it flys in at number 1 the papers will be right up her backside championing her!

alot of "what ifs" there eva and it still ignores the fact that if she struggles following all the publicity she had from being on prime time TV for 3 months solid on a saturday night on a show that altho is in decline was still one of the most watched shows on TV then its gonna take a helluva lot to turn that around

i watched a girl on AI the other night do the same song louisa did on one of the live shows on XF , AI was only at the last 24 stage and this girl did a version that made louisa look like shouty karaoke

something pretty remarkable will have to happen to turn her into a marketable "current" popstar

AI has some shouty female singers though, in fact I blame that show as to why we've had Louisa, Che, Lauren Murray, and Sam Bailey within the last few years.

did i say they didn't have any ?

i was comparing one performance of one song that louisa did to the version a girl did on AI

as for saying its AI's fault we get shouty singers on XF i suggest you go back and have a look at the type of singers that have done well on AI over the years

Oh I know what you're saying, I'm just saying though that I'm dubious with AI as they only ever seem to have good Rock singers in my view, and even that's hit and miss.

It just seems to find shambolic singers of all types of Music and puts them to the lives.

sorry but it sounds like you have never watched the show

and from your previous comments about the type of acts you like i would have thought that winners like kris allen and philip phillips to name but two would have been right up your street

of the first group of 7 acts that have been put through to the live shows this year we have 3 or 4 acts that would be in the indie/singer songwriter sort of style

Kris Allen had a good voice, but was completely behind Adam Lambert vocally and performance level in that series from what I saw of it.

And Philip Philips lacked any vocal talent in my opinion, Colton Dixon had more potential out of the Indie/Rock bracket in that series in my opinion along with that Elise woman.

i'm give up tbh , you argue you want more indie/singer/songwriter types rather than shouty divas and when i point out that shouty divas haven't actually dont that well on the show and that WGWG style singers have you then say you dont like them

i'm done

Just because they're Indie/sing songwriter types doesn't make them automatically good though.

The two that you mentioned in particular lacked any charisma, and in Philip Philips's case lacked any vocal talent in my view, plus the two that you mentioned was very popped up for the show that they was on just like how Ben Haenow and Matt Cardle was on the UK X Factor.

In my opinion true alternative winners of Rock/Indie would've been people like Adam Lambert, Aiden Grimshaw, Siobhan Magnus, Colton Dixon, Luke Friend, Elise Testone, Taylor Henderson, Matt McAndrew, Bella Ferraro etc but as usual the majority of the audience that watches these singing shows judged off what was more Pop friendly sound, who had the most "Pop" looks, and who has the best personality like it's Big Brother.

I'll never be keen on the winners until they actually have an interesting sound no matter what the genre is, it's why The X Factor Australia has been the only one to impress me with acts like Reece Mastin, Samantha Jade (who was brave enough to go for a Kanye West song) and Dami Im winning, none of them were shouty, they all had a genre of Music they was associated with, and they had personality in their performances.

I wonder what her dramatic entrance video will say about her when she comes back this year to perform her new single.

You'd think so. Just let the natural winner win. Everybody has equal coverage, press and singing slots and staging. Then we'll see who the public actually think are good and want to win...

I don't think anyone can say Louisa's career is over, especially the haters.

The problem with Forever Young was that it was given the Simon Cowell treatment - let's make the most boring cover version anyone has ever heard. I bet Simon didn't like it, he "loved it". He would.

I said throughout the series that Louisa was a fantastic singer but I also said her version of Forever Young was one of the most boring depressing covers of a song I've ever heard in 12 series of X Factor. I'm pretty sure many Louisa fans didn't buy her winner's single because they also didn't rate the funeral remix given to her to sing.

Louisa is young so should be made to look fresh and current. If Louisa released a new song similar to Lush Life by Zara Larsson, I reckon all the Louisa fans would be having an eargasm and saying how this is what the winner's single should've sounded like.

Little Mix have confined Cannonball to the graveyard and don't perform that song anymore. Louisa could easily go the same way, and never have to perform that boring Cowell inspired funeral drag ever again.

Cannonball still managed to get to number 1 though and managed to hang around the charts for several weeks. Forever Young is a bona fide flop. Also, people had a good idea what kind of act Little Mix would be after the show based on their song choices and their staging and styling. I've rewatched some of Louisa's performances and I have no idea what kind of act Syco her want to be, which is odd considering she was their preferred winner from Day 1. She's too much of a belter vocally to pull off something like Lush Life.

Her winners single is now 4 pound in Tesco ouch

4 quid for a single? Really??

She had the huge marketing machine that is the X Factor behind her and she still managed to crack the top five. Yes she had people like One Direction etc releasing at the same time as her, however the XF marketing juggernaut is huge. She had huge exposure and failed to even make the top five. Previous winners have also gone up against huge competition and secured at least a top five position. Also, what's even worse is that the song didn't just chart badly...it absolutely tanked as it didn't even hang around in the charts, The whole "but she was up against Adele, Bieber, One Direction" excuse doesn't really make any sense as it can only really be used (at a stretch) to explain why she didn't initially chart very well. You can't blame them for the song flying out of the charts and not hanging around.

A couple things you guys are forgetting it was the worst series in a long time, the winners single was just the worst we've had! It was never going to make number 1 officially the top 5 had mental streaming numbers - though it got number 1 on iTunes but streaming affected it if we was going on pure sales she was number 2 I think hardly a flop, streaming has affected the charts a lot it's just a way of masking how many people don't actually buy music anymore.

Also we can't judge Louisa on forever young her success will be determined by her material in the real world and how she carries herself. She's young enough to make a real go of it.

I can see Louisa's poor chart performance only doing one thing: changing the winner's single to similar to the Australian version - upbeat pop.

Whether Louisa's song was number 1 or 100, she was always going to be disposable. But Simon will do whatever he can to make sure next year is number 1.

Very true. As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Its not even hit now 93 and the winners song usually hits the spring Now so that could be an indication of how poorly she has done. Who picks the winners song?