Although what you’re doing there is painting a caricature of the show. It’s not a sob story fest, that’s just what people who don’t watch it think.
Probably the most famous example of it is the fella a few years ago who’s wife had died, and they did mention it rather a lot. But it’s not like he won. In fact, nobody has ever won off the back of having a sad story to tell.
A speech impediment isn't really "I'm singing for my mum because she got hit by a truck after she went missing after Dad died because he lost his job when he succumbed to depression after my brother got an incurable disease and fell off a bridge and I didn't get into my top choice of university" while a Take That instrumental plays over it.
I shouldn't be laughing at this comment... but I just can't help myself.
Ultimately, it doesn't come down to how a big the names are on a reality show, it comes down to casting. If all the celebs play a particular role then it doesn't really matter whether 90% of the audience has never heard of them, they'll get to know them.
Strictly is now a far better show than X Factor, and I say that as someone who would always have watched the latter. And it also has the benefit of being in an era when people seem to have gone off the nasty antics of reality shows, no doubt partially because the real world is quite nasty enough. You can see X Factor trying to change a little on that, but it doesn't really suit X Factor to be nice.
The issue for X Factor will probably come down to whether it maintains a large enough audience and maintains a lead in the younger audience which advertisers crave. When Strictly takes over there, the game's up.
On manipulation - the problem The X Factor has is the people the public like won't sell a single record. So they have to nudge the audience in a particular direction. It's a fascinating battle of wills and that undercurrent is actually a more entertaining watch for me than some secretary from Bristol singing I Will Always Love You for the 546th time.
Because it gives singers who use them an unfair advantage in the competition.
So which X Factor singer has benefitted from their sob story. Can honestly think of none - all that is long forgotten really by the time it gets to the live shows.
BGT on the other hand is a different matter, but even then they have to back up their story with their talent.
Having not watched the show for many years I couldn't possibly give you an example. But what it boils down to is it should be about the singing ability, nothing else. Even The Voice, which initially tried to swear by that, soon started caving into back stories etc going by what I've been told.
Having said that, a modern habit TXF and BGT have been getting up to is staging and scripting the most menial shots of somebody in an audience saying something like "I can't believe we're actually here" or somebody waiting for an audition and saying to whoever's with them something as awe-inspiring as "I can't wait to meet Simon". The fact that these people are mic'd up and the shot is perfectly stage is beyond patronising.
X Factor bounced back above 6m last night so there is still life in the old dog, but maybe they should move it entirely to Sunday out of the way of Strictly.
If they got rid, some people wouldn't accept it and give any new show short shrift as 'they got rid of TXF for this'
It's noticeable that out of the vast number of reality shows, talent shows, challenge shows etc that all started in the early part of the 00s, the only one that has been axed has been Dancing on Ice, and that axing was so successful they are bringing it back. Everything else is still rumbling on with varying degrees of success.
To think Gladiators was axed in 1999 for dipping below 6 million viewers.
It's a bit of a different landscape these days. that was 3 years before I had any form of digital TV.
Although I'd love to see it back, in all of its big, grand, cheesy glory, non of that serious stuff that Sky did with it.
It's noticeable that out of the vast number of reality shows, talent shows, challenge shows etc that all started in the early part of the 00s, the only one that has been axed has been Dancing on Ice, and that axing was so successful they are bringing it back. Everything else is still rumbling on with varying degrees of success.
??
Pop Idol, Fame Academy, Faking It, Reborn in the USA, The Block, Soapstar Superstar, Just the Two of Us, Celebrity Wrestling
... just to name some of the bigger shows of that era which have long since been axed (mostly for the better).