Why I hate X Factor...So very very much

X Factor? More like Z factor: A plea to the sane television producers out there...

Dear top ITV bosses, please make this year’s X factor as quick and as painless as possible. Unlike last year’s, which was about 2 months of crying, laughing, screaming and homophobic jokes (and that was just Danni). As well as badly mimed performances by Cheryl Cole on the night of the final, and a failed attempt at getting I-can’t-even-remember-who, to number one. This was incidentally won by metal band Rage against the Machine with single ‘Killing in the Name Of’ in a Facebook campaign whose main aim was to try and topple the might that is the X Factor. More like the zzz Factor. They didn’t really put up much of a fight did they? In the end Rage were the clear winners with something like 40,000 more sales.

So what can we expect to find on this year’s X Factor? A heavily pregnant Danni, giving birth during the live final maybe? That would certainly make interesting television, or Simon Cowell admitting live on air that his abnormally square head is due to getting it stuck in a vice during woodwork at school. Either way I certainly do not have high hopes for this year. Producers of the show need to realise that unless they change something (or my favourite idea, cancel the show altogether), viewing figures will start to drop, as we have already seen the record sales do. The idea of the show is to turn ordinary people into pop stars, a feat that has failed many times over the years; Leon Jackson, Steve Brookstein, Michelle McManus? Know who these people are? Didn’t think so, but they are all winners of either the X Factor or its former show Popstars. 41 year old Steve is now back singing in his local pub after being dropped by his record label; you can just imagine him sitting next to the elderly locals telling them, ‘I’m off the telly you know.’ And after appearing in various glossy magazines after her dramatic weight loss, people have forgotten that Michelle McManus is even a singer! A television show that has lost its way? I definitely think so.

It has the same design every year; mix together a bunch of deluded singers whose biggest fan is their mum, and you have the auditions. Then add the absolute no hopers, the weirdoes, the comic relief, the angry loser, the sob story, the person who may actually win and the one Simon Cowell wants to sleep with (tall, tanned, massive breasts, long dark hair). Mix in some cliché abuse from the judges, and some pointless remarks from Danni and you have the live finals. Cue the excited final, the British public go mad, ringing off the hook for their favourite loser. And you end up with a wannabe pop star, which is kind of what they were at the beginning, only now they have a record label that will drop them in 6 months and a guaranteed lifetime spot doing panto every year in Coventry or Plymouth.

Someone once said to me, “You might not like it, but 8.5 million people watched the live final last year.” To which I smiled, and casually pointed out, “Yeah, but there was 50 million who didn’t.”