“X-Factor”, a popular reality TV show created by the legendary Simon Cowell, has been going on strong for the last 17 years. In a show about a singing competition, performers from all over the UK would come onto the show and perform in front of Cowell, who is notoriously known in show business as being the toughest music critic that you’ve ever seen. Many have failed to impress him, but a lot of people have succeeded and have then gone on to become famous stars, a few examples of this being Cher Llyod and One Direction.
Unfortunately, wannabe stars have lost their chance to impress the “X-Factor” judges, as the show, after 445 episodes, has been canceled.
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“X-Factor” had been going on consecutively for the last couple of years, with them only taking a break during the pandemic so that everyone can quarantine safely. In February 2020, it was announced that the show would be going on a brief hiatus, presumably because of the pandemic, but it was due to return in 2021. However, several months later, the Director of Television at ITV, Kevin Lygo, revealed at the virtual Edinburgh TV Festival that there were really no plans that had been made for “X- Factor” to continue.
“It’s not definitely returning, it might return, and if it does, the format will tweak,” Lygo said, “Simon controls it more than we do. When does he want it to come back, how does he want to come back? Hopefully, we can be part of it.”
Unfortunately, Cowell doesn’t seem to have any interest in continuing “X-Factor”, as he is already in the midst of creating a new musical quiz show that will be called “Walk The Line”, where contestants will compete for a cash prize. The release date for this show has not been revealed yet, so it is safe to assume that the show is still under development.
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While many fans are, understandably, very upset that the show is being canceled, several other people, most of which who have been on the show before, have actually expressed their happiness that the show is being canceled.
As we already know, Simon Cowell is notorious in all of his appearances for being a really tough critic, and some think that even his harsh words can be a little too much sometimes. However, this actually wasn’t the worst part of the show. Most contestants have came out to talk about the overall ill treatment that they’ve experienced on the show, as well as the overwhelming public critiques that they’ve had to endure as well. Once you’ve been on “X-Factor”, you’re sometimes just know as “the person who was on X-Factor”, and it can be hard to build a separate identity off of that.
Perhaps it’s good that the show is being canceled after all, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t still upset about it. No matter how you might feel about “X-Factor”, it’s still sad when a TV show is canceled, but at least we have the good memories to look back on.