History Series / TheXFactor

* Series/TheXFactor UK

* '''Sharon Osbourne''' (2004-2007, '' Battle of the Stars'', 2013, 2016-2017, ''Celebrity''). Music producer and agent, also known as the wife of Music/OzzyOsbourne. The only judge prior to the near-total overhaul of the panel in 2011 never to have a winning act. Returned to the panel as Tulisa's replacement for the 2013 series, claiming to have signed a contract for a one-season deal and finally scooping up a winning act. She returned in 2016 and was set to be a live shows only judge in the 2018 series but later withdrew.

* Nicole Scherzinger (2010 as guest judge; 2012-2013, 2016-2017); former member of the group Pussycat Dolls. First showed up during an incredibly popular spell as a guest judge in 2010. While her stint on the US version of the show didn't go down so well, she was still popular enough in the UK that she was invited back as a full-time judge in 2012.

* '''Simon Cowell''' himself (2004-2010, 2014-)
* Louis Walsh (2004-2014, 2016-2017); an Irish CloudCuckooLander with a tendency to put forward joke acts. His bickering with the other judges is a source of much of the show's humour. May or may not be ObfuscatingStupidity.
* Sharon Osbourne (2004-2007, 2013, 2016-2017). Music producer and agent, also known as the wife of Music/OzzyOsbourne. The only judge prior to the near-total overhaul of the panel in 2011 never to have a winning act. Returned to the panel as Tulisa's replacement for the 2013 series, claiming to have signed a contract for a one-season deal and finally scooping up a winning act. She returned in 2016 and was set to be a live shows only judge in the 2018 series but later withdrew.

* '''[[Music/OneDirection Louis Tomlinson]]''' (2018-); singer, one fourth of Music/OneDirection, who are currently on an indefinite hiatus and is good friends with Cowell.

[[//folder]]

** Series 7: Played straight. Winner Matt Cardle suffered a troubled relationship with Simon Cowell, and while his career didn't live up to the utter domination he had over the contest, he had a positively-received run on the West End's staging of ''Theatre/{{Memphis}}'' and three modestly selling albums. On the other hand, second-placed Rebecca Ferguson has been reasonably successful, but not as much as fourth-placed Cher Lloyd. But their success is nothing compared to third-placed One Direction, who skyrocketed to international superstardom, dethroned Music/JustinBieber as the number-one teenage obsession and became a major catalyst in his declining popularity, denied [[Music/TheWanted a rival boy band]] from having a similar level of popularity, and are far and away the show's most successful act, ''ever''.

** "Ablisa" in the 2010 series were almost as bad. Their performance was predictably terrible, and when guest judge Natalie Imbruglia criticised them, one of the two girls in the group, Lisa, snottily asked her who she was. Imbruglia just laughed off the remark, but the other girl, Abbey (who until that point had been by far the saner of the two) didn't react so kindly, and actually ''punched'' Lisa in the face before storming off the stage. Lisa followed and [[FlippingTheBird gave the finger]] to the judges and audience as she left. The two had to be separated by guards backstage, and Simon told the floor manager to relay that "[[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome It's four "No"s, by the way]]."
** The lead singer of Triple Trouble actually returned in the 2011 auditions, intending to put in a better performance and make up for his idiotic behaviour two years previously, claiming he had fully matured and had actually learned how to sing. The second he opened his mouth it was clear that ''[[BlatantLies he still couldn't sing]]'' and was soon stopped by the judges. The instant that happened he marched up to Tulisa and interrogated her over why she had stopped the music, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Gary Barlow was the one who ''actually'' stopped it. Eventually, security had to be called to pull him away, after which the judges called him out on his attitude (Gary even told him that he "[[IronicEcho had matured]] [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments like a bad curry]]") and told him, that in their opinion, he was talentless. He responded with "That's all fine and good, now let me give you ''[[OhCrap my opinion]]''". What followed was him verbally assaulting Tulisa, calling her "a scumbag", "a little bitch" and comparing her unfavourably to Cheryl Cole and ultimately concluded with him being escorted away by security while flipping off the judges. Louis deemed him "[[KickTheDog completely talentless]]" and after he went on a rant backstage, ''[[BewareTheNiceOnes Dermot]]'' snapped at him to watch his mouth before he finally left the building. Also, this gave him the unusual distinction of being the first ''and'' fourth act to get booed off the stage (the second being the aforementioned Ablisa, and the third being a Music/MichaelJackson impersonator -- who proceeded to make his own return a couple of episodes later, where he unsurprisingly became the fifth act to get booed off).

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/x_factor_7097.jpg]]

It's basically the same as ''Pop Idol'' (and ''Series/AmericanIdol'') except the contestants are split into categories. The categories originally consisted of 16-24 year olds, Over 25's and Groups. However with the addition of a fourth judge in Series 4 (2007), The 16-24 category was split into boys aged 16-24 (16-27 in 2010) and girls aged 16-24 (16-27 in 2010/2) with the Over 25's (Over 28's in 2010/2) and the Groups categories remaining the same to give four categories in total. After the initial round of [[HopelessAuditionees frankly embarrassing auditions,]] each Judge is randomly assigned a category and has to coach his or her group up until the weekly live shows, which enters a FinalBattle where the losers are voted off by telephone polls until [[ThereCanBeOnlyOne only one remains.]] After that, the winners pump out one guaranteed hit single (usually that year's Christmas Number One) -- because the show is literally a two-month advertisement for their single -- before becoming an answer in a pub quiz. It is worth noting, though, that five of the show's ten winners (notably Music/LeonaLewis and Music/LittleMix, who are the only successful contestants off of their respective series; Music/AlexandraBurke, ''Shayne Ward,'' and ''James Arthur'' have done quite well, but didn't overshadow the other contestants the way the first two did.) have actually achieved continued success since their debut single. There have been other cases where contestants who didn't win have gone on to be arguably more successful than the winners of their series (the most significant example being Music/OneDirection; although ''JLS,'' ''Olly Murs,'' and ''Music/CherLloyd'' have also been quite successful). UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} also has the super successful ''Reece Mastin,'' ''Samantha Jade,'' ''Dami Im,'' and ''Taylor Henderson.''

Already having been exported to numerous countries, an [[TransatlanticEquivalent American version]] started in 2011. Tropes for the American series follow the British series.

Not to be confused with ComicBook/XFactor, one of [[Creator/MarvelComics Marvel's]] ComicBook/XMen {{spin off}}s. Compare to ''Series/BritainsGotTalent.''

The American and the Australian versions now have their own pages.

The judges are:

* [[Music/CherylCole Cheryl Fernandez-Versini]] (formerly Cheryl Cole; 2008-2010, 2014-2015); member of the group Music/GirlsAloud, winner of ''[[SpiritualPredecessor Popstars: The Rivals]]'' in 2002. At first seems the least cruel of the judges but is a master of the StealthInsult. She's also fond of deliberately being a pain in the ass to Simon.

* '''Music/RobbieWilliams''' (2018-); singer, formerly of Music/TakeThatBand.

* '''Ayda Field''' (2018-); actress and television presenter, who is among the current panelists of ''Loose Women'' and is Robbie's wife.

Depending on the extent to which you view reality as subjective, the show is either an important yearly television tradition or an ever-growing armpit stain on the shirt of British culture.

A British singing competition that has run annually from 2004. It is the SpiritualSuccessor to ''Series/PopIdol,'' and came about because producer / presenter Simon Cowell wanted an intellectual property that he owned the television rights to.

[[Characters/TheXFactor Now with a character page, which could use some building for the UK and USA versions of the show, especially.]]

*** The Series 15 final is scheduled to be even earlier (actually, one day, but still, meaning 2 weeks' sales will be behind the XF winner prior to the festive chart, whether that's a sign of giving up, or that few acts, beyond those with a loud fanbase, peak on their debut nowadays without streams.

** Series 8: Averted. Winners Little Mix have enjoyed reasonable and consistent success, which grew over a long period, becoming the first winner who had a later album and single more successful than their first original ones, while runner-up Marcus Collins seemingly dropped off the face of the earth, settling for Theatre.

*** Ella Henderson- who placed 6th- waited 19 months to release a single- and it than sauntered towards number one on iTunes beating the second place by 2 sales to 1. It became the fastest seller by a British act at that point of the year. The album also got number 1, but various contractual problems have meant that a second album has remained on ice for years, with numerous label changes.

** Series 11: Initially appeared to be played straight, than became double subverted: Winner Ben Haenow and runner-up Fleur East both released their post X-Factor debut singles within a couple of weeks of each other, with Fleur's single "Sax" charting higher than Ben's "Second-Hand Heart". Fleur initially had a better shot as Ben confirmed that poor sales of his second single, and an album released against 1D AND Bieber and charting only 10th, resulted in him departing from Syco, however, her album underperformed as well, missing the top 10, and she's yet to follow up the massively successful Sax. She left the label too to continue her career.
** Series 12: Remains to be seen, but winner Louisa Johnson recovered her winners' song's failings with her successful collaboration with Clean Bandit, Tears, although she will be the first winner ever to not release their debut album in the year after their win, and was eventually let off Syco, in 2018, still without an album, in spite of high popularity. Reggie and Bollie meanwhile, were denied success with New Girl due to streaming, in spite of its use on an advert, its follow up struggled to make an impression on iTunes, and they haven't released an album either. Everyone else seems to have been forgotten

** Series 14: Rak-Su have toured with Little Mix, but their first post XF song , with Canadian DJs Banx and Ranx, hasn't charted, although it was just a preview song, and a second song with them has started to scale the iTunes chart with Simon Cowell setting them up as the heirs to 1D, although with presently modest results. However, runner up Grace hasn't even got that far, at least not yet. Maybe promoting on XF will boost both of them.

*** Ella Henderson- who placed 6th- waited 19 months to release a single- and it than sauntered towards number one on iTunes beating the second place by 2 sales to 1. It became the fastest seller by a British act at that point of the year.
** Series 10: Remains to be seen. Sam Bailey's mostly covers album aptly released for Mother's Day topped the charts, but she seems like a conforming version of Steve Brookstein, and no one from the series has dominated yet.
** Series 11: Winner Ben Haenow and runner-up Fleur East both released their post X-Factor debut singles within a couple of weeks of each other, with Fleur's single "Sax" charting higher than Ben's "Second-Hand Heart". While it's too early to see how their careers will pan out, Fleur probably has a better shot as Ben confirmed that poor sales of his second single resulted in him departing from Syco, however, her album underperformed, and she's yet to follow up the massively successful Sax. She left the label too to continue her career.
** Series 12: Remains to be seen, but winner Louisa Johnson recovered her winners' song's failings with her successful collaboration with Clean Bandit, Tears, although she will be the first winner ever to not release their debut album in the year after their win, and was eventually let off Syco, in 2018, still without an album, in spite of high popularity. Reggie and Bollie meanwhile, were denied success with New Girl due to streaming, in spite of its use on an advert, its follow up struggled to make an impression on iTunes, and they haven't released an album either.
** Series 13: Matt Terry's first song was a collaboration with the mighty Enrique Iglesias. It seems to have outperformed 5AM's debut song, which interpolates DMX, but when there was massive anticipation for Saara's first post X Factor project, it was a big let-down - she was the first Finnish act to be named for Eurovision, for which she previously lost 2 selection processes, without a selection, though the public chose her song, club track about her open mental health struggles Monsters, from a choice of three. Her stage show from Brian Freedman was overdone and eclipsed by two ace female singers from the Levant, who provided a virtual 2 horse race (the one who won had previously won Series/{{Rising Star}}, a show which itv attempted to have alongside the X Factor in 2015 but cancelled it before it was due to begin as its unique concept failed in the US and Germany, in order to represent her country, and was the first woman to win that show). Saara? She was Finland's first finalist since 2014, but, whilst historically ensuring Azerbaijan were eliminated for the first time ever by narrowly making it in at their expense, she placed BELOW THE UK, who placed 3rd last and had their performance interrupted by a hooligan! The hosts stopped her from placing last. 3 weeks after Saara's let down, Matt was released by his label, having not even got top 20 for his album the prior winter! 5AM meanwhile never released or followed up Up in Here after admitting to lip synching it on BGT. They were sacked after an EP and split. A waste of three awesome talents.
** Series 14: Rak-Su have toured with Little Mix, but their first post XF song , with Canadian DJs Banx and Ranx, hasn't charted, although it was just a preview song, and a second song with them has started to scale the iTunes chart with Simon Cowell setting them up as the heirs to 1D. However, runner up Grace hasn't even got that far, at least not yet. Maybe promoting on XF will boost both of them.

The show's most successful act is season 7's third-placed boy band Music/OneDirection, with Season 3 winner Music/LeonaLewis not far behind. Some other notable finalists from this version of show include: Music/AlexandraBurke, JLS, Olly Murs, Jedward, Music/DianaVickers, Music/CherLloyd and Music/LittleMix.

* '''Sharon Osbourne''' (2004-2007, 2013, 2016-). Music producer and agent, also known as the wife of Music/OzzyOsbourne. The only judge prior to the near-total overhaul of the panel in 2011 never to have a winning act. Returned to the panel as Tulisa's replacement for the 2013 series, claiming to have signed a contract for a one-season deal and finally scooping up a winning act. She returned in 2016 and will be a live shows only judge in the 2018 series.

** Series 14: Rak-Su have toured with Little Mix, but their first post XF song , with Canadian DJs Banx and Ranx, hasn't charted. However, runner up Grace hasn't even got that far, at least not yet. Maybe promoting on XF will boost both of them.

* '''Louis Walsh''' (2004-2014, 2016-2017); an Irish CloudCuckooLander with a tendency to put forward joke acts. His bickering with the other judges is a source of much of the show's humour. May or may not be ObfuscatingStupidity.
* '''Sharon Osbourne''' (2004-2007, 2013, 2016-). Music producer and agent, also known as the wife of Music/OzzyOsbourne. The only judge prior to the near-total overhaul of the panel in 2011 never to have a winning act. Returned to the panel as Tulisa's replacement for the 2013 series, claiming to have signed a contract for a one-season deal and finally scooping up a winning act.

* '''Nicole Scherzinger''' (2010 as guest judge; 2012-2013, 2016-2017); former member of the group Pussycat Dolls. First showed up during an incredibly popular spell as a guest judge in 2010. While her stint on the US version of the show didn't go down so well, she was still popular enough in the UK that she was invited back as a full-time judge in 2012.

* '''Music/RobbieWilliams''' (2018-); singer, formerly of Music/TakeThat.

* '''Louis Walsh''' (2004-2014, 2016-); an Irish CloudCuckooLander with a tendency to put forward joke acts. His bickering with the other judges is a source of much of the show's humour. May or may not be ObfuscatingStupidity.

* '''Nicole Scherzinger''' (2010 as guest judge; 2012-2013, 2016-); former member of the group Pussycat Dolls. First showed up during an incredibly popular spell as a guest judge in 2010. While her stint on the US version of the show didn't go down so well, she was still popular enough in the UK that she was invited back as a full-time judge in 2012.

** Series 12: Remains to be seen, but winner Louisa Johnson recovered her winners' song's failings with her successful collaboration with Clean Bandit, Tears, although she will be the first winner ever to not release their debut album in the year after their win. Reggie and Bollie meanwhile, were denied success with New Girl due to streaming, in spite of its use on an advert, its follow up struggled to make an impression on iTunes, and they haven't released an album either.
** Series 13: Matt Terry's first song was a collaboration with the mighty Enrique Iglesias. It seems to have outperformed 5AM's debut song, which interpolates DMX, but when there was massive anticipation for Saara's first post X Factor project, it was a big let-down - she was the first Finnish act to be named for Eurovision, for which she previously lost 2 selection processes, without a selection, though the public chose her song, club track about her open mental health struggles Monsters, from a choice of three. Her stage show from Brian Freedman was overdone and eclipsed by two ace female singers from the Levant, who provided a virtual 2 horse race. Saara? She was Finland's first finalist since 2014, but, whilst historically ensuring Azerbaijan were eliminated for the first time ever by narrowly making it in at their expense, she placed BELOW THE UK, who placed 3rd last and had their performance interrupted by a hooligan! The hosts stopped her from placing last. 3 weeks after Saara's let down, Matt was released by his label, having not even got top 20 for his album the prior winter! 5AM meanwhile never released or followed up Up in Here after admitting to lip synching it on BGT. They were sacked after an EP and split. A waste of three awesome talents.

** Series 13: Matt Terry's first song was a collaboration with the mighty Enrique Iglesias. It seems to have outperformed 5AM's debut song, which interpolates DMX, but Saara hasn't yet released her first major label release in U.K. She and Matt did a tour gig to 20,000 in Saara's native Finland. Saara was than the first Finnish act to be named for Eurovision, for which she previously lost 2 selection processes, without a selection, though the public will still name her song. If she becomes Finland's second biggest success, and biggest without a monster costume, it'll change.

** "Ablisa" in the 2010 series were almost as bad. Their performance was predictably terrible, and when guest judge Natalie Imbruglia criticised them, one of the two girls in the group, Lisa, snottily asked her who she was. Imbruglia just laughed off the remark, but the other girl, Abbey (who until that point had been by far the saner of the two) didn't react so kindly, and actually ''punched'' Lisa in the face before storming off the stage. Lisa followed and [[FlippingTheBird gave the finger]] to the judges and audience as she left. The two had to be separated by guards backstage, and Simon told the floor manager to relay that "[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome It's four "No"s, by the way]]."
** The lead singer of Triple Trouble actually returned in the 2011 auditions, intending to put in a better performance and make up for his idiotic behaviour two years previously, claiming he had fully matured and had actually learned how to sing. The second he opened his mouth it was clear that ''[[BlatantLies he still couldn't sing]]'' and was soon stopped by the judges. The instant that happened he marched up to Tulisa and interrogated her over why she had stopped the music, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Gary Barlow was the one who ''actually'' stopped it. Eventually, security had to be called to pull him away, after which the judges called him out on his attitude (Gary even told him that he "[[IronicEcho had matured]] [[FunnyMoments like a bad curry]]") and told him, that in their opinion, he was talentless. He responded with "That's all fine and good, now let me give you ''[[OhCrap my opinion]]''". What followed was him verbally assaulting Tulisa, calling her "a scumbag", "a little bitch" and comparing her unfavourably to Cheryl Cole and ultimately concluded with him being escorted away by security while flipping off the judges. Louis deemed him "[[KickTheDog completely talentless]]" and after he went on a rant backstage, ''[[BewareTheNiceOnes Dermot]]'' snapped at him to watch his mouth before he finally left the building. Also, this gave him the unusual distinction of being the first ''and'' fourth act to get booed off the stage (the second being the aforementioned Ablisa, and the third being a Music/MichaelJackson impersonator -- who proceeded to make his own return a couple of episodes later, where he unsurprisingly became the fifth act to get booed off).

It's basically the same as ''Pop Idol'' (and ''Series/AmericanIdol'') except the contestants are split into categories. The categories originally consisted of 16-24 year olds, Over 25's and Groups. However with the addition of a fourth judge in Series 4 (2007), The 16-24 category was split into boys aged 16-24 (16-27 in 2010) and girls aged 16-24 (16-27 in 2010/2) with the Over 25's (Over 28's in 2010/2) and the Groups categories remaining the same to give four categories in total. After the initial round of [[HopelessAuditionees frankly embarrassing auditions,]] each Judge is randomly assigned a category and has to coach his or her group up until the weekly live shows, which enters a FinalBattle where the losers are voted off by telephone polls until [[ThereCanBeOnlyOne only one remains.]] After that, the winners pump out one guaranteed hit single (usually that year's Christmas Number One) -- because the show is literally a two-month advertisement for their single -- before becoming an answer in a pub quiz. It is worth noting, though, that five of the show's ten winners (notably Music/LeonaLewis and Music/LittleMix, who are the only successful contestants off of their respective series; Music/AlexandraBurke, ''Shayne Ward,'' and ''James Arthur'' have done quite well, but didn't overshadow the other contestants the way the first two did.) have actually achieved continued success since their debut single. There have been other cases where contestants who didn't win have gone on to be arguably more successful than the winners of their series (the most significant example being Music/OneDirection; although ''JLS,'' ''Olly Murs,'' and ''Cher Lloyd'' have also been quite successful). UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} also has the super successful ''Reece Mastin,'' ''Samantha Jade,'' ''Dami Im,'' and ''Taylor Henderson.''

* AmbiguouslyBi: Lorna Bliss from 2011 attempted to swoon all of the judges with her provocative dance moves, including sitting on Louis Walsh's lap and attempting to climb atop Tulisa, much to her despair.

** He employed this to brilliant effect during that year's auditions, though. After one auditionee gave a rather... ''unusual'' rendition of "Vision of Love" by MariahCarey, Simon went to call a judge's vote immediately, but Louis insisted that the auditionee be given the chance to perform another song (each person that auditions is allowed two attempts; one without a backing track, and one with). What followed was a truly mind-bending version of another Mariah Carey song - this time "Hero" - that had the audience singing along and the judges breaking down with hysterical laughter.

* MuppetCameo: In the November 27, 2011 episode, Olly Murs sang "Dance With Me Tonight" as a duet with Miss Piggy, with Fozzie, Animal, penguins and Statler and Waldorf also appearing. This was used as a BonusTrack on the UK release of ''Film/TheMuppets'' soundtrack.