A bit of a frustrating conversation that seems to constantly take place. Why do people believe that the X Factor is rigged.

Can people answer the following:

1. How would it benefit Syco/Simco?
2. How would it benefit ITN Productions?
3. How would they get away with it?
4. Where is the evidence for this claim?
5. Is it only fixed when people you don't like get through?
6. Was it fixed when Leona Lewis/Alexandra Burke/Little Mix/James Arthur/Sam Bailey won?

To me, I see it the same as people that believe 9/11 was carried out by the illuminati. It's just craziness. There's no evidence for this claim. Surely, Syco/ITN would want the most popular contestant to win so that the voters feel in control. Syco especially would want the most popular act to win coz they'd hope they'd do well and sell records (obviously, we the public are more fickle than that).

But I'm curious to get the answers to the above

1. Controlling the winner to a bland nothing means that Syco's pets that don't win get some bizarre credibility from people that don't watch the show into thinking that they're amazing, and isn't it cool to go against the "establishment" basically the same thinking as Brexit.

2. It's easy with ITN, they'll want catchy headlines for their news providers, so they'll want someone like Matt to win than say Emily or Saara.

3. Again easy, manipulate the episodes so that the public feel in a certain way about the contestants, thus flucturating their vote.

4. Look at how certain acts are treated compared to others, for example in this series Matt could sound absolutely appalling like he did this week with I'm your Man and still get told that his the second coming, Ryan out performs Matt this week and is still being told that his lifeless by Sharon.

5. I think people notice it more when it's acts that they don't like, but of course we've all had favourites that have been liked by the production, in my case not enough to ever win because they're a little too interesting for this show, but there are some that definitely get some help from production, like out of my favourites Luke Friend being on late in the first three weeks in series 10 was to help build him a fanbase as the ratings would've died without him saving the year.

6. It was definitely fixed for all of those acts to win, especially Sam Bailey's year with every theme being dedicated to her.

I don't think most people on this forum think it's rigged, but there is manipulation that goes on. I will try answering your questions:

1) It benefits Syco because they want certain acts to progress in the show so it can act as a platform for their music careers. They don't want acts who the public like to go far if they can't make money off them, or they have no intention of signing them. It's a waste of a good promo opportunity.

2) I don't think ITV care actually as long as the ratings are good. I think that as the show was so successful for many years, they were convinced that the way things were being done was for the best.

3) I don't think the show is rigged so there is nothing to get away with. Nobody associated with the show is going to talk, as it wouldn't be worth the damage to their reputation in the industry and they've probably signed contracts that preclude them discussing how the show is run.

4) Again, I don't think the show is rigged and so there is no evidence.

5) Not at all. Two of my favourite X-Factor acts are Alexandra Burke and Little Mix and I think they both got a lot of help to be crowned winners. There are plenty of acts who I didn't care for who I think were treated shabbily such as Janet Devlin.

6) All of those acts got a lot of help to become the winners. The biggest tell is how they were treated compared to other acts. As I said above, I liked Alexandra Burke but even I concede in the latter half of her series she was getting much better feedback, song choices and staging than her competition. She even got to duet with Beyonce in the final while Eoghan and JLS had to settle for Boyzone and Westlife.

Not rigged, manipulated. We've discussed this endlessly to be honest.

It's not rigged - it can't be with all the Ofcom complaints they would've found something by now but they manipulate and deramp acts in a clever way so public turn against the early favourite - it's pretty simple psychology really - Simon Cowell and Syco are a very clever business and they will do whatever it is necessary - as wrong as it is! The show is manipulated not rigged

In fact, if you combine point 1 above with this point from the post before:-

1. Controlling the winner to a bland nothing means that Syco's pets that don't win get some bizarre credibility from people that don't watch the show into thinking that they're amazing, and isn't it cool to go against the "establishment" basically the same thinking as Brexit.

....you can see that Syco can't lose! They can get short term returns from a bland winner and a longer term return from more credible runner ups ...

What's the term, scripted reality?

With enough knowledge of suggestibility you can pretty much make the public do whatever you want them to without actually, physically rigging the results. And this show isn't even very subtle about it.

Just want to toss in that I think the fundamental reason it winds up so manipulated is because XF is still actually trying to produce viable pop acts (unlike The Voice) and the public who watches XF doesn't vote for what will actually sell after the show. They tend to vote for technical excellence and a nice personality. They don't vote for interesting, they don't vote for star power, and they don't adjust for age differences.

This is it ^^^^ the XF producers and Simon have come to the conclusion that the public have no idea what a popstar is and vote for bland male usually with the personality of a dead goldfish and the star power of a tortoise hence the dropped winner most of the time because the public are so fickle they vote but never buy the material - they can't be trusted I am 50/50 with the manipulation in some ways it's wrong but boy I do understand the reasons behind it, sometimes their chosen one is questionable like this series it's clearly Matt - a popstar he ain't, he's fairly dull

That's the core of it I think. The demographic more likely to vote on these shows are not the same people that spend the most money on music. The voters, probably mostly younger, consume music by streaming. It's their parents that actually still buy music.

Again, I don't see any evidence here. Just conjecture based on perceived bias. If you look at Laura White, she was an exceptional vocalist. Would have probably done well. Was certainly the favourite from the first episode. She performed last on the show and tore it up every time but then was booted out. Alexandra didn't seem like a strong contender until the more interesting acts filtered out like Diana and Laura. JLS seemed as pumped to win as Alexandra.

Ella Henderson seemed like favourite to win but was booted off and was in the bottom two with James Arthur. Olly Murs and the other seemed pretty much tied all the way through and were given equal support. Sam Bailey was a good singer but no star and the entire final three were a complete mess that year. The year after was a tough one. No stand out stars. Fleur pulled it out of the bag a few times out of the dark horse though.

I don't think it's fixed and the manipulation seems minimum or accidental in part to me. I mean no one's cheated out of a win at the end of the day, they're lucky to be there. I just think some people do take the show too seriously. Many here will say it's manipulated but others go straight out and say it's fixed.

I'm confused how people could think that the show would be manipulated in the interest of Syco. Many of the winners leave Syco, and many of the runners-up join. Simon clearly knows what he thinks will sell, and that's not always the winner, but he's bound to sign them.

One of the things that does annoy me about The X Factor is how the judges lack the ability to criticise acts that make it through to the live shows. But apparently public critique is a form of manipulation, so I can't blame them for being coy about what they really think.

Anyway, if the show is manipulated to produce viable winners, it's not doing a great job of it.

i'm not sure ...isn't it the case that the winners, as someone else said, tend to be technically good singers rather than "cool" potential pop stars ?People voting for the excellent singers (rather than voting on looks, for example) would tend to be older, wouldn't they ?

That Jukebox is defo rigged!

It is not rigged, it is heavily manipulated. They stack the lives so they can engineer a win or close to it for the ones they chose to invest in and promote.

Here is the safest "proof" I can offer(safe for some people i know, that is)There are people here who can back up the fact that I told them before the houses were even finished filming(and posted as soon as I could without it being traced to anyone) that A)Matt or Ryan would win, they want a boyband pop act this season and B) Honey G was through to lives (at the time, she was officially "out"), and she was intended to be promoted heavily so she'd be in a while. Those claims, considering the best boy singers had yet to be cut and Honey was officially out at the time,were pretty ridiculous sounding ...unless you knew that the show was being as rigged as it legally can, IE manipulated, behind the scenes, and heard it through enough very reliable channels to believe it.

It's not rigged, but it is heavily manipulated. Simon & Syco go into any given year thinking of what they might want on their label. For example, this year they might have decided that they fancy a male soloist, as there aren't many on the roster and they think there''s a gap in the market. They run the auditions and roll with whoever seems to be picking up steam on Social media etc..., in this case Matt Terry. They know they might sign some of the others too, Emily, 5am so they also want them to have a following with the public and therefore make sure that they won't vanish without a trace if they try and market them. It's just business with a TV show attached and they'll manipulate it accordingly to get what they want. It''s why they don't put all the strongest talent through as they have an idea of what they can and can't market- The Voice is a singing competition, and therefore put the best vocalist's through, The X Factor is about more than finding the best voice, they want someone who'll sell

Ella and James were the two horses they were on that season, so they had to pick one when they wound up against each other. Rylan was supposed to go that week. He knew the score so well as the novelty act for that season that he actually got upset he knocked her out afterwards. These days they are pimping the novelty acts further, perhaps as a point of differentiation with The Voice. (Not sure it's a good strategy tbh.)

Tamera was supposed to be the star in Sam's year but just couldn't get it together, and eventually they gave up. Meanwhile in Fleur's year they pushed her but she couldn't overcome Ben. They don't always get their winner, but if not then they want to make absolutely sure they get their top prospect to the final. This is where the negative manipulation comes in. It's hard to pimp an act beyond a certain point if they don't fit the optimal vote-getting profile, but it's very easy to undercut a few other acts per show to make sure they slide under them and keep them in.

BTW I wouldn't expect to see much of that next week, as there's a clear B3 that are probably a mile away from the category alphas (Matt/Emily/5AM/Honey G) in the vote. Might as well give them all decent treatment so they put on a good show

It is not rigged, but it is without a doubt, heavily manipulated to make the acts that SYCO would like to sign look as good and as marketable as they possibly can. SYCO have discovered many acts through the X factor and not just the winners, infact they have made more money from the runners up than the actual winners. When you think about how much money they must have made from One Direction, then surely you have to start thinking that the X factor is actually not just a "talent show" but also a great platform for SYCO to find and promote potential acts whom they would like to eventually sign. Don't tell me there won't be any manipulation involved when there is that much money at stake! Cowell is a businessman, and no more than that. SYCO have acts that they would like to promote/sign and that is where the manipulation comes in.

There's still no evidence here. There's just speculation. I don't believe it's deliberately manipulated at all. I think, if it is, they do a very bad job of it because many of the winners and runners up do terribly in the long run. I've given loads of counter examples but I can't see any feasible consistent examples of them supporting someone for a home run of the season. It may seem like they do when they have consistently good feedback. But look at this season, Emily is getting great feedback and so are Honey G and 5AM and they're all getting huge budgets for each performance. It's hard to pick one out as getting extra support. We suspect a male winner because Louisa won last year and he ticks all the boxes for a winner. I don't think that's manipulation though.

i think its as much incompetence as manipulation, bear in mind the people supposedly doing the manipulation are the ones picking the terrible themes and keep re-using the same songs year after year after year

do we really think brian friedman does staging as a manipulation or is he just a bit crazy and tends to go OTT ?

i've no doubt there is some attempts at influencing things but come on this is a TV show, if they were capable of manipulating things to the extent they are accused of then i would think they would be clever enough to recognise the inherent flaws in the show as well

main reason i dont think its as heavily manipulated as people say it must be is because every week we get fans of every act accusing the producers of throwing their favourite under the bus or giving preferential treatment to anyone who they see as a threat to their favourite

at the end of the day its easier to blame the show for sabotaging someone they like than just accept they weren't very popular

It's incredible how the public fall for all the manipulation.

A&R is always a gamble, there are never any guarantees that an act will be successful. That won't stop them from trying though, but the fact that it doesn't always work doesn't prove that they haven't tried.

All of the contestants you have mentioned are getting a boost from production compared to the rest of them, and it's not even very subtle. They don't just focus on one act as the potential winner, that would be really stupid considering how much of a gamble any new signing is, they are building up a few of them so when the time comes Syco has not one, but several new acts to his label.

I don’t think there will ever be proper evidence, unless somebody who’s worked on the show decides to go to the press or does a tell-all book. I think most of the people who think the show is manipulated to some degree believe that there are several favoured acts and not just one (with the exception of last year). There is usually one favoured male, female, group and "joke" act. I'm not sure if that's even manipulation, but wanting to have a lineup of contestants that makes good TV.

The producers’ priorities also probably change as the series progresses. You mentioned Laura White above and I think her one is a good example. She was clearly a favourite initially but apart from the 1st live show, she didn’t do well in the voting. Suddenly the negative comments from Simon started about her appearance. Diana Vickers was also intended as a priority act, but she suddenly started getting negative comments as well from Louis and Simon at the same time as stories about her being difficult surfaced in the press. Anyway, this is all just my interpretation.

It's not rigged as that would mean actually interfering with votes cast. Is it manipulated? I definitely think so.

They don't have to just make one act look good. Whichever acts are very popular with the people, as in, the top 4 maybe when it comes to votes (Yes, he'll get told which acts have received the most), they might get all the songs that really suit them and whatever (maybe not every single week). Cowell knows that young lasses go crazy over boy groups and maybe even male solo singers that look like Matt. Cowell's a VERY successful businessman, of course he'll be trying to guide his chosen acts into getting more votes. He'll then try and sign them to his label after the show finishes. Acts will have been chosen early on that he'll have thought would make him a load of money. Manipulation might not always work though. Anyway, the show's entertaining to watch.