The X Factor 2018: Here are the changes I’d like to see to the show next year

The X Factor 2018: Here are the changes I’d like to see to the show next year

The X Factor reboot ideas we’d like to see come to fruition (Picture: ITV/Fremantle /Syco) Next year..

The X Factor 2018: Here's the changes to the show I'd like to see
The X Factor reboot ideas we’d like to see come to fruition (Picture: ITV/Fremantle /Syco)

Next year, The X Factor will turn 15.

When the show began in 2004, Friends had just wrapped filming, Michael Jackson‘s This Is It tour wasn’t even a seed of an idea and banding around the name ‘Kim Kardashian‘ would have begged the response: ‘Kim WHO?’

Fifteen years later and I am still a devoted X Factor fan, for better or for worse. Upon reflection, my experience with the show is best summed up by Sharon’s daughter Kelly, who once sang in a song ‘we’ve shared the years, we’ve shared each day’, but, ‘we’re going through changes’.

Me and X Factor have shared some of the greatest moments, and now, in order to power hungrily into the next 15 years, and to escape the all-time-low viewing figures of the recent final, it’s time for an X Factor shake up.

Here’s the things I’d do if I broke into an X Factor producer’s meeting.

Commission a mid-week spin-off reality show with the contestants

The X Factor 2018: Here's the changes to the show I'd like to see
The X Factor contestants assemble in the house (Picture: Syco / Thames / ITV Plc)

I’m A Celebrity, Celebrity Big Brother and plain old fashioned Big Brother have demonstrated that there’s a giant public appetite for reality TV where not a lot happens. It’s because, as people, we buy into people. It keeps me awake at night that Simon spends thousands of pounds a week on rent for X Factor contestants to hygge down in a luxurious house that none of us get to see.

In 2016 producers called it time on Xtra Factor (we’d like to see that back too but that’s another conversation) so there seems to be room for experimenting with a different spin-off, perhaps to air mid-week. I’d certainly feel a lot more connected to the artists, and in turn, more inclined to pick up my phone, or the app, and vote, if I knew that – say – Grace was a dab hand at making spag bol. Or that Rak-Su butchered a casserole in the name of bad cooking, bleary-eyed after a long day’s rehearsal.

If I could buy into the contestants, by learning more about them, it’d make the big, flashy weekend shows more relatable. Singing’s all well and good, but, let’s face it, we all want to know where the sexual tension lies behind-the-scenes at the X Factor mansion. We’re barely even teased a snippet of their whole weekly life, which is begging for a bright spin-off show.

Bring the sing off back to increase the drama, but still let the audience vote

I rather liked that viewers were awarded autonomy this year. Power to the people! Now that my couch potato housemate and I are firmly in control of the destinies of 16 humans (and groups) and their musical careers, I feel a lot more assured about watching the show. I truly feel ‘part’ of it.

Now I’d like to interfere even more. Can I vote again for a sing-off please? Here’s what I’d like (bossy or what?): the two contestants with the lowest votes to be stood next to each other, or shoulder to shoulder should they so wish, and for voting lines to be re-opened again for a short time, so that viewers can vote again, based on a live sing off.

Then we get back the drama of the sing off back, where some of the most passionate, stripped-back performances came from, and viewers still have the ultimate say.

Keep the self-penned songs element and explore it further

The X Factor 2018: Here's the changes to the show I'd like to see
Grace has championed the show’s new push for self-penned songs (Picture: Dymond/Thames/Syco/REX/Shutterstock)

Let’s address the elephant in the room for a moment: not all of these contestants are going to be famous. Nearly all of them probably won’t be. But, all of them, as Simon rightly says, have the opportunity to use the platform the show provides as a spring-board to careers in the theatre, and in the media more widely. They might not be the next Beyonce or Bieber, but given the show’s impressive reach, lots of them will at least work in the industry in some way or another.

Which is why 2017’s most triumphant turn was allowing contestants to perform their own songs, to give us a taste of what life after the show will be like for the performers. Like Grace’s song, Wolves? Or Rak-Su’s song, I’m Feelin’ You? Then buy a ticket and see them after the show ends, they’ll probably be gigging and you already know you like their natural musical style. With contestants singing their own tracks, you get a higher understanding of who they are – both in the show, and after, no matter what happens.

The X Factor is pegged to return to ITV in the autumn of 2018.

MORE: Simon Cowell has donated £250,000 of his own money to X Factor winner’s single charities

MORE: X Factor final ratings drop to all time low as it’s beaten by Strictly yet again

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