X Factor

And Liberty X had the last laugh with a much longer and more successful career than Hear'Say, who were gone within a year... and a change of line-up in the process.

Cowell relished the demise of Hear'Say, he said something along the lines of them not being grateful for the opportunity and behaving as though they had made it.

Obviously he was seething their debut track, the one that got them a number one, was originally recorded by his band, Girl Thing. 'Pure and Simple' was actually flogged around by record companies; I know for a fact two other artists were offered the chance to record it before Hear'Say did.

I think Cowell was originally going to be a Popstars judge but pulled out because of reservations. But then the success incentived him to find another platform which is where Fuller's Pop Idol came in.

Wasn't Lythgoe the producer of Pop Idol?

Hear'Say had an extraordinary rise and fall. From nothing to being the biggest pop group in the country to people shouting abuse at them in the streets within, what, 18 months or so?

Yep, I think Survivor too.

Fuller is likened to as the father of Pop Idol but Cowell and Lythgoe were just as involved in its conception. And all it took was two minutes into the pitch for the ITV entertainment controller Claudia Rosencrantz to agree to take the show.

They were having difficulty getting the network executives in America to agree to take the show. It was only because Elizabeth Murdoch had seen the British version that Fox snapped it up. Even then there were a lot of teething problems: struggling to find a fourth judge, the chemistry between Paula and Simon was off and she was shocked at his putdowns. Simon was aghast when a producer handed him a script of putdowns -- it was common practice then to have everything scripted.

At some point Rupert Murdoch got involved and told them to "make the same show they make in England!" before going on a rant about how Hollywood people love to change things and ruin everything.

What is interesting is that X Factor failed in the USA. I know there was a rights settlement clause whereby Cowell had to do X seasons of American Idol and had to wait Y years before launching an American X Factor.

Pretty much. It was crazy really. I remember the final single Loving Is Easy, which was a last ditch attempt to make things happen after one of the original five quit.

Ref. the Cowell vs Fuller spat, the book Sweet Revenge is a fascinating read. It delves into the complex mind of Cowell and the struggles to get X Factor USA up and running etc. - but it also looks at the Girl Thing, er, thing. He thought he had found the new Spice Girls but GT were too blatantly a poor copy of what was already by that point out of fashion. It also talks over the battle to release Pure and Simple.

I remember quite liking Girl Thing, they didn't get anywhere though despite the massive amounts of hype put into them.

When it comes to Hear'Say, Kym Marsh hasn't done too bad at least. The others though, where are any of them? Apart from Myleene who seems to pop up occasionally. And Danny became Shrek

Kym Marsh knows where the bodies are berried at Granada.

Blackberry or Blueberry?

By the time it appeared in the US it looked like a copy of The Voice, which NBC had got to air months earlier.


That said I do think the final US series is one they should have learned from where they stripped out the middle stages and had a BGT style pick of 10 in each category to go through to the 4 Chair Challenge, with those going through to the live shows. Their 4 Chair episodes, though not live, were also produced as if they were a studio episode with the presenter upfront conducting proceedings and were all the better for it.