Apparently the bosses think the panel was too young last time so turning back the clock a whole two years to get Walsh and osbourne means the older viewers will come flooding back. Forgetting that the viewing figures weren't great two years ago either

However what each change seems to do is alienate another part of the lost viewing demographic and they don't get the back.

I suspect most of the viewers are older now anyway, however all this will do if it happens probably lose another load of younger viewers who I doubt will want to catch up with Walsh and Osbourne at any point

there is an element of that but the more serious issue imo is no-one takes anything the panel says seriously anymore and the individuals on the panel dont really matter as they all basically say the same guff.

its just wall to wall cliches, over the top hyperbole and there is zero attempt at any meaningful critique.

Also, viewers aren't stupid. Every year we see new people drafted in, in a bid to "save" the show/ reverse its fortunes... only for them to disappear the next series and replaced with somebody else.

If the producers don't have any faith in their own product, how are the viewers supposed to?

Also the general public are gonna be annoyed that the show isn't being judged on the singing even remotely.

And the general public won't like the fact that we've had 12 winners now and so far only two of them have been able to have hit Albums multiple times.

I do think this is a key factor. Folks get behind a particular singer/group spending money to win and then buy music. Constantly having them dropped after max a couple of years is going to switch folks off. How many of the finalists of each series are actually making money (living) from singing/music? I don't include reality tv circuit!

Maybe so but the program was so bad last year, judges were hopeless, presenters seemed lost, Cowell was as fake as fake.

the ratings don't increase no mater what happens to the panel year on year

I might be wrong but I'm sure the ratings for the set of auditions for the year Sharon returned are amongst the highest rated in XF history and followed a really bad year. The year after with Cheryl and Simon was fairly flat in the ratings, but the show fell apart in the later stages, as with other years. No panel has ever really had that wide an appeal, it's down to the show itself and it was only really last year where it went horribly wrong. Last year was just change for change sake.

No they were part of the downward spiral when Sharon Osborne returned down on the previous year and they have kept going down

They should just go back to basics.

Kate Thornton. Room auditions. Boot camp. Judges houses. Live shows. Final. Winner's single.

The more the producers insist on tampering with the format, the more the public insist on watching SCD.

I think to be honest X factor is at the point of no return now, and bringing back old judges and formats in a desperate bid to relive the "glory days" is just tiresome now. It's one of those shows that you will tune into out of habit but not really giving a toss about who wins as its all rigged anyway. The constant change of judges and presenters is just a way of keeping the X factor relevant in the news but by the time the show has started no one really cares.