The X Factor - Series 6

The new series is still a couple of months away but already lots of stuff is coming out. The 'biggest' news over the past couple of days has been the seemingly last-minute plan to revamp the auditions format and invite the public to come and watch a la 'Britain's Got Talent'. I think this will be a big mistake, personally, as I just can't imagine the XF format suiting that kind of audition - it's something that fits much more comfortably with BGT:



http://www.applausestore.com/applausestore-tv-shows.php

Apparently this decision was very recent as the judges had already filmed the Glasgow auditions as normal last week, only for them to do a u-turn - the Glasgow auditions are set to be completely re-shot with the audience (not sure what that will mean for auditionees who were already sent through to the next round).

Other bits and bobs:
- Results show set to move to Sunday nights this year. Louis Walsh confirmed it when he was on a chat show in Ireland a few weeks ago. No word on whether it will be live or pre-recorded like Strictly - I'm pretty sure it will be live. Simon vetoed the move last year because ITV didn't want to spend more money on doing a second show live, but according to The Sun they've increased the budget for this year's series by £6,000,000 so it's unlikely that money is an issue this time round and I'd be surprised if Simon backed down so easily.
- In the same article, The Sun said Cheryl Cole will receive £1.2m for her role as judge and mentor this year. Dannii is on £450k, Louis on £800k and surprisingly Dermot's on £1m - allegedly.

So it seems like we'll be seeing a couple of significant changes to the show this year. Not entirely sure whether they'll be a success or not.

ITV cutting costs with their shows, yup.

There don't own the show,

I thought the article suggested they'd raised the budget to make it grander

Ah right, yes. Would ITV be the one increasing the budget for it though? I'm not sure how this all works, but the OP seems to suggest that the changes at least with budget are linked back to ITV. How that's spent would then be a matter of the production company?



I keep forgetting the sarcasm on the internet principle.

Not sure about the audience thing, I kind of liked the intimacy of the X Factor auditions it doesn't really warrant the baying mob of BGT.

But after 5 seasons, why not try something different ? Keeps it fresh. It may work, and make it a bit more of an event.

I don't like the idea of the results being on a Sunday. It's also copying Strictly.

Lets be honest. US idol did it first

I agree - and I also think it risks devaluing the live auditions of Britain's Got Talent. I know it feels like a lot more, but really they're the only two audition shows on TV at the moment, so keeping them different is for the best IMO.

Perhaps bringing the audience in at the Boot Camp stage would be better. I think they had one last year, but just made up of the other contestants.


Also don't think there is any benefit in moving the results show to Sunday either - all ITV doing are moving the ratings, so at 10pm on Saturdays rather than getting 10m for the results they'll probably get 2-3m for a film.

They do it out of necessity though due to the time differences.

They were never getting over 10m for the results though - the only time they did was when Britney was on (bar the finale). Every other week the results were shedding up to 2.4 million viewers from the main show (obviously it wasn't that extreme every single week but most results were well over a million viewers behind the performance show). Only the semi-final and the final saw the results increase.

The problem is the results have always been on quite late on a Saturday night. Moving it to an early evening slot on Sundays should hold on to more of that audience.

I agree that its replacement needs to be capable of doing better than 2-3m though - if all they did was shunt on a film afterwards then it'd be a waste of such a huge potential audience.

I don't like how ITV is copying the BBC by broadcasting television signals.