Alton Ellis

Template:The X Factor UK The fifth UK series of The X Factor is currently being broadcast on ITV. It premiered on 16 August and will continue through to 13 December 2008. Auditions in front of producers were held in April/May, with callbacks in front of the judges in June. The number of applicants for series 5 reached an all-time high with a reported 182,000 people auditioning.

Like the previous series a year before, series 5 gained media attention even before auditions in front of the judges began. Press attention was largely over the changes made to the cast—most notably the departures of Sharon Osbourne as a judge and Fearne Cotton as presenter of spin-off show The Xtra Factor. ITV confirmed that Osbourne was to be replaced by Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole. Cotton was replaced by Holly Willoughby.

ITV confirmed that all twelve of the finalists would record a cover version of Mariah Carey's 1993 hit "Hero" in support of the Help for Heroes charity. The single will be available for download from 25 October 2008, after the finalists have performed the song live on that night's show. It will be released in stores on 27 October, and Simon Cowell has predicted it "will go straight to the top of the charts".

Judges and Presenters

File:Series5xfactor.jpg

Judges (front row, from left to right) Walsh, Cole, Cowell and Minogue. Presenters (back row, from left to right) O'Leary and Willoughby.

The judges for series 5 are Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole. On 6 June 2008 (six days before filming was due to begin at the London auditions) ITV announced that long-standing judge Sharon Osbourne had left the show. Media speculation over the reasons for Osbourne's departure alluded to rising tensions between her and fellow judge Dannii Minogue, as well as disputes over pay. When interviewed by Chris Moyles on BBC Radio 1, Osbourne said that it was "the best four years of [her] life" but felt that it was "time to move on." Much media coverage and speculation surrounded who would replace Sharon. Former Spice Girl Melanie Brown revealed on 16 September 2008 in an interview for New! Magazine that she, among others, was approached by Cowell as a possible replacement for Sharon. However, on 10 June 2008, four days after Osbourne's departure, ITV confirmed that Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole was the new judge for series 5 and the replacement for Sharon Osbourne. Minogue has praised the new judge, saying: "She’s very knowledgeable about music and I think she’s going to bring a new side to the show." Cowell is reported by Minogue to feel that Cole's voiced opinions are something "which he loves". Presenter Dermot O'Leary returns to host the main ITV1 show, choosing to leave other projects, including his ongoing role as the host of Big Brother's Little Brother, in order to concentrate on The X Factor. Xtra Factor presenter Fearne Cotton left after series 4, having presented for only one series, to be replaced by Holly Willoughby.

Format

Auditions

A reported "record-breaking" 182,000 applied for series 5, with filming for auditions in front of judges taking place in June/July 2008. Auditions were held in the cities of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff, and Glasgow.

Dannii Minogue was missing from some of the auditions due to visits to her native Australia in order to film auditions for Australia's Got Talent.

Bootcamp

As in series 4, all four judges worked together at the bootcamp stage of the competition. This took place at the O₂ arena in Greenwich, London on 4 August 2008, and was televised in two episodes on September 27 and September 28, 2008. Contestants are said to have stayed in a nearby hotel in Blackheath.

During the bootcamp stage, around 150 acts were whittled down to just 24 which advanced to the next round, 6 in each category.

After completion of bootcamp, the judges were told the category that they are to mentor. The category mentors are as follows:

• Dannii Minogue: 25 and Overs
• Louis Walsh: Groups
• Cheryl Cole: Girls
• Simon Cowell: Boys

Visit To Judge's Houses

The "Visit To Judges Houses" round was filmed in late August/early September and was broadcast over two shows on the 4th and 5th of October. As with previous years, the judges welcomed the 6 acts from their selected category to their 'home'. Each act had only one chance to impress their mentor who, along with a guest judge from the music industry, had the task of selecting which 3 acts were to go though to the live shows and which 3 would be eliminated.

Category	Mentor	Location	Guest Judge	Acts eliminated at this stage
Boys	Simon Cowell	Barbados	Sinitta	Alan Turner	Liam Payne	Mali-Michael McCalla
Girls	Cheryl Cole	Cannes	Kimberley Walsh	Amy Connelly	Annastasia Baker	Hannah Bradbeer
Groups	Louis Walsh	Castle Leslie, Ireland	Shane Filan	4Instinct	Desire	Priority
25-and-overs	Dannii Minogue	St. Tropez	Emma Bunton	James Williams	Louise Heatly	Suzie Furlonger

Categories and Finalists

The final 12 have now been confirmed as follows

Key:

  – Winner

  – Eliminated

  – Currently Competing

Category (Mentor)	Acts
Boys (Simon Cowell)	Austin Drage	Eoghan Quigg	Scott Bruton
Girls (Cheryl Cole)	Alexandra Burke	Diana Vickers	Laura White
Over 25s (Dannii Minogue)	Daniel Evans	Rachel Hylton	Ruth Lorenzo
Groups (Louis Walsh)	Bad Lashes	Girlband	JLS

Boys

Austin Drage

Austin Drage (22) is a singer from Loughton. Austin first started singing when he was very young and, whilst still at school, took part in musical theatre and amateur dramatics. Having signed up with an agent, Austin made acting appearances in the 2000 movie Snatch as well as a number of TV shows including The Bill and Casualty. After a spell in boy band 5Boyz he auditioned and won a place in E4's gender-swap reality show Boys will be Girls, aired in 2006. On the first live show, he will be performing the number one Every Breath You Take by The Police

Eoghan Quigg

Eoghan Quigg (16) is from Dungiven in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. He lives at home with his parents and has two younger brothers.

Scott Bruton

Scott Burton (19) is a former Pontin's Bluecoat from Manchester. Scott initially wanted to be an actor but decided on a career in music after taking part in karaoke.

Girls

Alexandra Burke

Alexandra Burke (20) is a singer from London. In 2005 she auditioned for The X Factor and got through to the Judges' Houses stage. However, her then mentor Louis thought she was too young and did not put her through to the live shows leaving Shayne Ward to go on and win the series.

Diana Vickers

Diana Vickers (17) is a student from Blackburn, Lancashire and has been singing since the age of 11. She’s had singing lessons and has taken part in local competitions, but has never sung professionally.

Laura White

Laura White (21) is a student from Bolton. Laura has been singing and playing the piano since she was a little girl. She has never had a professional lesson but began singing in jazz bars at age 15.

Over 25s

Daniel Evans

Daniel Evans (38) is a pool cleaner from Essex. Daniel has almost applied for all five series of the programme, but this is the first year that he has actually auditioned. He decided to participate this year after the death of his wife. He has a daughter named Ana Maria.

Rachel Hylton

Rachel Hylton (26) is a mother-of-five from London. At the age of 13 she had the first of five children and life spiralled out of control, problems with drugs led to a spell in prison and eventually three of her children were taken into care. Rachel is hoping to win X Factor to have a better life for her and her two youngest children, who she still looks after. On the first live show, she will be performing With Every Heartbeat by Robyn.

Ruth Lorenzo

Ruth Lorenzo (25) is a PR Consultant from South East of Spain. She now lives in Surrey.

Groups

Bad Lashes

Bad Lashes are a four-piece girl band made up of Sam Bennett (21), Stacey Lincoln (20), Sophie Wilson (23) and Emily McNamee (19).

Girlband

Girlband are a four-piece girl band made up of sisters Tita Lau (19) and Phoebe Jay Lau (17) along with their friends Marisa Billitteri (19), Layla Manoochehri (22).

JLS

JLS are a four-piece boy band made up of Marvin Humes (23) (previously in the group VS, created by Simon Webbe of Blue), Jonathan Gill (21), Oritse Williams (21) and Aston Merrygold (20). Aston previously played Cookie in CITV's Fun Song Factory.

Live shows

The live shows are due to begin from 11 October 2008, and will continue through to the final. Leon Jackson is due to perform on the first live show, promoting his second single "Don't Call This Love". Girls Aloud will also be performing their new single, "The Promise". This will be the first single from their fifth album Out Of Control, as announced by Cole at the "X Factor" launch in August. It was confirmed on their official website that Girls Aloud will perform on October 18th. It has been reported that there will be a Bond-themed live show where the finalists will sing previous Bond theme songs. It has been confirmed that Alicia Keys and White Stripes frontman Jack White will perform on the X Factor singing their duet "Another Way to Die", which is being used as the theme for the forthcoming 007 film Quantum of Solace. Simon Cowell has stated that Britney Spears will be performing her new single "Womanizer" at one of the live shows.

Proposed Sunday results show

The live stages of series 5 were proposed to be divided over two shows: a "performance show" on the Saturday night, followed by a "results show" on the Sunday night. The move was in light of rival TV show Strictly Come Dancing having already adopted this format. Simon Cowell stated that he did not want this idea to go ahead. Series producers were reportedly not in favour of broadcasting a live Sunday results show because it would cost an extra £500,000 to stage. In late July 2008 a newspaper source reported that the idea of a Sunday results show had been scrapped, in favour of continuing the regular format of announcing the results after the performance show on the Saturday night.

Ratings

Viewing figures for series 5 are the highest ever so far for any X Factor series. The first show of the series attracted an average of 10.2 million viewers and peaked at 12 million (the highest for any first show in the UK X Factor franchise). The second show received similarly high ratings, with an average of 9.4 million, peaking at 10.2 million viewers. Viewers fell to 8.16 million for the third show (peaking however at 10.1 million viewers in the last half hour), but warm weather was blamed for the drop and the programme was still the most-watched show of the day. Ratings returned to their previous levels for the fourth episode, which attracted an overall average of 9.2 million viewers,. Episode 5 of The X Factor was another ratings smash peaking at 10.4 million viewers and eclipsing Strictly Come Dancing's 6.7 million viewers, however this was only a preview show. The final auditions episode attracted an impressive average of 9.3 million viewers, against an average of 8 million viewers for Strictly. The Bootcamp episodes performed well in the ratings; the Saturday episode achieved an average of 8.18 million viewers, however it was beaten for the first time by Strictly which achieved an average of 8.59 million viewers, the Sunday episode however won the battle with 8.93 million viewers to 8.13 million viewers for Strictly.

The first Xtra Factor episode drew in an average of 1.2 million viewers, peaking at 1.5 million which was that week's highest-rated ITV2 programme. The show's second episode pulled in 1.1 million viewers, while the third episode attracted 1.3 million. Episode four was viewed by 1.2 million. Episodes 5 and 6 continued to attract more than 1 million viewers for each show. The Judges Homes episodes of Xtra Factor pulled in a strong 1.2 million viewers average for both shows gaining the most viewing figures for multichannels.

External links

• The X Factor at itv.com