On the audition stage, the show was doing good even better than it was on last year's auditions. The judges had chemistry. It was a fun show to watch. The ratings were increasing week on week. A lot of great acts and a lot of potential contenders were built up.

However, moving from the six chairs to the judges' houses and to the live shows, the show started losing viewers. Lesser than it was last year. I really it was the Judgess' Houses where people started tuning off the show, the show had the chance to save the declining ratings with putting in an excellent batch of acts. Honestly if they've put in Caitlyn, Peyton, Janet, James Wilson, Skarl3t, Christian and Nate instead of the likes of Gifty, Honey G, Emily, Ryan, and Bratavio. They might have save the show. And it would be a lot better if they made it into a top 16. And the theme wheel would have been good if they have placed more better themes rather than themes you know that they will pick an old song and trying to make it more older. And dated song choices!!!

Poor song choices. Poor critiques from the panel. Mentors not caring for their acts. Obvious manipulation. Clear favouritism. Favouring novelty over talent.

Poor acts - simple as that.

The manipulation has reached new heights and when you combine that with the poor selection of contestants, the constant miming and ramped up backing vocals it has just turned into a big fake contrived circus.

This was a great series until the judges selected the live show acts...

Basically yeah everything you said.

What we want to see is more like what Saara did last week. Just do the theme, put your heart and soul into it, and put on a good performance. Don't 'make it your own' and slow it down.

And I mean Christ. Let's have a better choice of songs. 'Songs from Movies' this week is a HUGE amount of choice to choose from and they've picked Celine Dion, Roxette and bloody Elvis Presley?? The Sam Smith is the most out-there choice which at least is good to see although I don't think I like the song.

Also, aren't they normally on two songs each by final 6?

Been pants this year poor acts same songs same quests it's like ground hog day

judges houses was a complete disaster and they haven't recovered since

There's a lot of overthinking going on here.
In reality, whilst yes, the choice of finalists may have dented the numbers, in reality it's just live show fatigue. Ten weeks of the same format that's been on TV for 13 years is hardly gonna bring in great numbers is it? It's a good chunk higher than The Voice- which didn't even manage 5m for a single live show this year.

The 'middle stages' (bootcamp-judges houses) were pretty steady YOY so they're not really a factor.

Judges houses, wrong acts went through.. It's gearing up for Matt Terry to win or 5AM

This - I switched off at that point, and am only keeping track of things on this forum out of habit! Had they not had such blatant fixing with bringing 'back' multiple acts who didn't even make it through 6-chair challenge, it may have been a tinier bit easier to swallow the level of manufacturing going on, but the stacking of the decks for the ones they clearly were putting all their commercial hopes in was a step too far.

The quality is just so low this year - I've tried to watch the YouTube vids of the performances, to at least give the competitors a chance to impress me, and only Saara (of those left) has any level of actual talent. Of the others, Matt is a vaguely competent singer, although in the blandest way possible - Leon Jackson was thrilling compared to him! Everyone else is actively terrible - there's no sugar coating how bad they are!

The truly annoying thing is that they had the options available to make a really competitive, exciting show (with Caitlin, Peyton, Skarl3t to name just a few), and they got it so, so wrong. Terrible production decisions from there on in, so the show will continue to suffer and drag it's feet towards a deeply uninspiring finale, and we have to wait yet another year for them to possibly get their arses in gear, to deliver a better quality show, that people might actually watch!

They don't even care that much about making the "drama" look accidental any more nor even try covering up the blatant manipulation. People are so used to seeing them "sensationally" pick terrible acts over good ones they are immune to the point of switching off. First/last slot, selected coverage to make people look stroppy or like bullies, selected judges comments to spark sympathy votes...the audience know all the levers and its getting tiresome.

Since the Katie Waissel (should have gone in week one and saved us from her increasingly contrived and fake "new me" farces) and Cher Lloyd (should have been Mary, thank god Cher was then booted off in 4th place) fixathon to keep precious Cheryl's girls in as long as possible, it's only gotten worse.

The Boys category this year has probably been one of the biggest farces of all the seasons so far to ensure Matt gets the best shot of winning as possible with no competition in the vocal ability side of things. Enter Freddy, severely limited and easy early cannon fodder and Ryan (forgettable sub-par busker talent but comes with the Emily relationship storyline for added drama) as the "competition". Please!

Honey G needs to win this year to drive it home. What point is there really in investing oneself in any of the normal acts? They're just pawns in Simons carefully scripted reality show.

Tbh I don't think it's overthinking. I've been in and out of X Factor for the past few years but was ready to give it a full go this year. The auditions and bootcamp were entertaining and I was enjoying and invested in the show. Six chair challenge was a bit of a farce with the flu flopping and bringing people who had been sent home already but that didn't ruin it They ruined it too much. It was at Judges Houses when they selected the wrong people and sent home better talent that things went wrong. Half the acts that went through shouldn't have done. I though I'll watch the lives anyway if I'm staying in on Saturdays but by the 2nd/3rd week of the live shows I just decided to stop torturing myself. I'd rather just watch Strictly and then put Netflix on and watch something not as contrived as this show.

Basically this. The top 6 is awful and I'm a massive X factor fan

Also Niall.

As you guys said the selection of the Top12 was awful. So far the season went well but they totally messed up.

I genuinely think chicken-gate in the auditions was the turning point. The first couple of audition shows it felt more natural than the last couple of years, like they were toning down the fakery and manipulation. Then Itchy and Scratchy turned up and everyone realised it was just the same old shite again.

Personally I don't think it's down to the acts (even the better one's are the same old generic karaoke crap) it's just a tired old format that became stale. Originality is never promoted and all we are left with is Stars In Their Eyes under a different banner, There's good singers performing in every town every weekend but unless they have something of their own to offer they're no big deal. For me Cowell missed a trick in not supporting good original acts whether they're a solo act or band ( who actually play instruments). What a good theme week would be if a artist had to perform and play an original song, no autotune, no backing tracks and certainly no miming, then people could see who has genuine talent.

agree with OP.

6 of the acts shouldnt, have made the live shows. They simply cant sing very well at all.


Its all being set up for a Matt Terry win - even though it doesnt need to be as hes so much better than the rest.

such a shame as it could be a great show.

Originally The X Factor was all about discovering a fantastic singer who could go on to become a big successful artist in their own right.

Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke, Little Mix and James Arthur are the only winners who in retrospect were worthy winners. They all had success to some extent outside the UK.

It's just that now, The X Factor is all about the exact thing that was heavily criticised 10 years ago. In Leona's year, acts like Honey G and Dumb & Dumber would've been hailed as a laughing stock at their audition, sent home with 4 "no's" but allowed to make one more appearance in the final as all the series' rejects gather for one last excruciating performance.

Now these "rejects" are in the live shows.

It's all gone Pete Tong but I suspect Simon Cowell has realised this and doesn't care. His "winner" will have success regardless of whether they actually do win, come second or for all we know has already been eliminated from the show.

As some already said, the manipulation on XF reached new whole big levels this year... And it is unaceptable to watch when u know it. Before it was 50/50 rigged, now there's nothing natural about the show.

Oh man i wish I had the guts to stop watchin this crap, and i already dont watch it on tv, i only check the POOR performances on youtube, but man im hoping that there is a small chance of the producers want to save the show, and next year stop the crap they've been doing this year.

Also, Relley, if u out there, pls join some music tv show real soon miss ur voice <3

If anyone thinks this show is going to get 12 million viewers again like it once did, you can have 12 Michael Jackson/Freddie Mercury/Whitney Houston esqe singers on and the ratings still wouldn't get back up to that point.

This is a TV show and like all TV shows they eventually lose their appeal and lose their grip on their audience.

Another ITV show Good Morning Britain is a good example. They changed their set about 5 times. They've hired every combination of presenters under the sun. Yet still they cannot get any better ratings.

X Factor will never again get 17m for a final but if it has a great series then it could be as high as 9-10m. SCD is a format that works so well. my favourite ever series is 2008. The judges were brilliant and the acts were the best ever. Every week was a shock but the biggest shock was Laura being eliminated in week 5 and Diana not making the final.

It's still better than last year's borefest

the judges picked the wrong acts to go into the live shows so the public lost interest, simple

Relley is a friend I'll pass your message on xx

I actually think if The X Factor actually bothered to have 12 really good singers in the live shows where all of them were really good to some extent, then word of mouth alone would boost X Factor. You might get people at work saying "did you see that girl on X Factor, she's incredible" or "wow, that young lad, fantastic singer, never heard anything like that before". Then you get more people watching to see what the fuss is all about, more viewers become impressed and won over, they then tell others about how good X Factor is, before you know it, you've got the public back on board.

Until then, X Factor will continue to lose viewers at a comical rate. The public are fed up with the joke acts, the repetitious song choices/themes and don't want endless ad breaks.

In answer to Good Morning Britain, too many ad breaks and too many Andi Peters "here's your chance to win £80,000 and a brand new car". Nah, I'll stick to the more formal but straight to the point BBC Breakfast. Or even better, MTV Hits!!!


I agree 100% that 2008 was by far the best year for X Factor with countless great singers, where even some that were eliminated early were still really good like Laura. It's a shame Eoghan was there as he was the only singer I had no time for.