The X Factor 2018

Interesting there's at least 3 ex Eurovision contestants on there and not one of them have mentioned what must be one of their career highlights.

Daniel Could on Sofabet, usually a great betting blog for this show (it covers Eurovision in the Spring and X Factor in the Autumn) made a great point - it's like the producers are just phoning it in now, fully expecting the axe to fall next year.

Maybe the trick is to not try and compete with Strictly (although I find that equally boring and the fake enforced positivity grates a bit) and do something completely different.

What's very obvious is that nobody has the balls to say "this is never going to beat Strictly again, it's had its time, let's pull the plug." And I honestly don't think you're going to attract any credible artists to it. The reputation and flack hurled at Eurovision in this country - all that kiss of death for your career stuff, not for credible artists etc - really deserves to be thrown at X Factor now.

It doesn’t compete with Strictly anymore. Note it starts just as Strictly ends.

I’ve watched a few auditions from this series and to say it’s time to call it a day is not strong enough. It didn’t hold my interest, I never saw one act rejected, Robbie just wants to show off, I didn’t know who his wife was and Louis is too nice.

Andrew is spot on when he says that Strictly is the better programme. It’s heavily beating the XFactor in the ratings (by almost two times) and there’s no need to wonder why.

I do find it slightly annoying that the fresh new show that has taken TXF’s crown is also 14 years old, so isn’t fresh or new either.

It’s like people getting bored of Noel’s House Party and starting to watch Blind Date instead.

I wonder when the next era of Saturday night TV will begin.

ITV have completely lost their touch when it comes to the big entertainment shows. Yes BGT, I'm A Celeb & Takeaway are still massively successful, but they are all aged formats. There seems to be no new ideas, or they are not prepared to take any risks, hence all the comebacks ie. Dancing on Ice / Millionaire.

The XF situation has been going on for years now, and whilst the show is fading its even more exposed now as it's front and centre as the only thing they seem to commission on a Saturday night apart from Jonathan Ross which itself is fading.

Saturday needs a complete overhaul, but new formats are not readily welcomed by audiences and take a while to build. They should have been trialling and bringing on new formats that could co-exist alongside X Factor initially before it past its peak. It's a complete lack of foresight & planning.

Bang on the money. And it's the same with presenting talent; extremely reliant on Ant and Dec to deliver the goods. There isn't an environment to foster new, upcoming or different talent.

TXF badly needs a rest. It's tired and formulaic.

Bang on the Money ironically one of the shows they tried with new talent and it didn't work. To be fair ITV have tried a little bit more with new talent over the last couple of years than the BBC, but nothing has stuck. Their last new Saturday night hit was probably Ninja Warrior, and even that doesn't get what The X Factor does now.

Even at it's peak I struggled with The X Factor audition stages and I do wonder if they could do with hitting the ground running and getting to the live shows quicker, effectively having the auditions off screen.

That said though the big new show in the schedule this week is The Big Audition, which is basically people auditioning for various jobs. Feels at least 15 years too late in the schedules.

Don't under estimate that point.

There have been dozens of new entertainment shows, on Saturdays, Sundays, Midweek and pretty much none of them have taken off

And that goes for BBC One as well.

It's also debatable if any light entertainment builds anymore, people make their mind up about 2 minutes into the first episode and then just turn over and watch something dependable on the other side

I get the feeling we are going to go into one of those 'Is Saturday Night TV dead?' phases again soon where outside of the Spring on ITV and the Autumn on BBC One, the night just plods along.

Viewers seem to have less and less time for Light Entertainment and I can't see where the next big thing will come from.

BBC One's big hope this year was a singing show and next year is a Simon Cowell produced dancing show, basically all derivatives of the same sort of thing.

In the world of Netflix and downloading box sets on a saturday night, will people still tune in for some silly light game show at 8pm?

You need a big money prize to get the people tuned in.

The Ant and Dec reliance has left ITV heavily exposed now that Ant McPartlin and therefore the double act are currently, whatever way you look at it, damaged goods.

The days of Cowell boasting how they're "Number One on Saturday night" and the big, BIG names that would be both a celebrity mentor and an interval act seem like a lifetime ago. The interval act roster now is covered by all five solo members of One Direction, Louisa Johnson, Little Mix and we can ask Robbie to put in a shift.

Everyone knows it's not a fair fight. The Lucie Jones vs. Jedward singoff was the moment the manipulation for me really jumped the shark. Weeks of slating the twins then Cowell goes and votes to save them convinitlently engineering a deadlock that sent Lucie home? Come on.

To be honest though you can trace where the rot set in back to 2011. Although Little Mix are one of the more successful winners, that's where the peak started to tail off. I think Simon going off to do the failed US show, taking Cheryl with him only for that to implode, meant he wasn't able to be hands on with the production. Add to that the fact that all the A team behind the scenes went to work on the American show, so consequently the British show got a B team behind the scenes, and it's not totally surprising to see why it went downhill so quickly. America got (all the) talent and the UK were forced to suffer a second rate production and where we are now is the end result.

Indeed, Cowell's return in 2014 delivered what I would say was the last truly great series. 2015 was " Get Louisa over the line at all costs." 2016 was "Oh f**k, Saara Aalto might actually win this" - it was evident some producers wanted to nobble her, but Brian Friedman was clearly cheerleading her behind the scenes (Indeed, he was recruited by her and YLE to do her Eurovision choreo and staging.) And then 2017 was the Grace and Rak-Su show.

Some good points but not sure I agree about Simon leaving for the US causing the show’s downfall. I think the Gary Barlow series were some of the best they’ve done (and were really good for talent too). The series last year was pretty good for talent too, just let down by too much tinkering with the format.

I completely agree with the earlier post - viewers just want the old format, a bit of the pantomime and some characters. The problem is they try to engineer the drama a little too much. I’ve long thought that their goal was to recreate the magic of the 2010 series, hence you seem to see them cast the same characters whereas that just happened organically.