Poor old John Adeleye finally relinquished his grip on the X Factor cliff edge, after three weeks of the producers stomping on his fingers (and three weeks of me backing him in the elimination market – I suppose I had to be right sooner or later). It won’t be much consolation for him, but with so little airtime during the audition shows and such poor positions in the running order, he did well to last as long as he did.
I breathed an especially big sigh of relief when Wagner was announced safe, as it won me over six hundred pounds; I would have lost over two thousand if he’d been eliminated. After writing yesterday’s article John Adeleye’s odds drifted to as high as 5/1 while Wagner came in to 5/2, so I was glad I held my nerve.
The pimp slot predictably kept Katie Waissel safe this week, and the choice of Jungle Book song – which seemed so left-field when first rumoured – now appears to have been part of the show’s attempts to reinvent her as a likeable figure by showing a fun side. How successful they are being is open to question.
The sympathy bounce from last week’s sing-off proved enough to save the pre-show favourites for elimination, Belle Amie, but the bounce often lasts only for a week so they must be among the early contenders to be in trouble again this week. I continue to think that Paije is on borrowed time, especially as Treyc will be in line for her own sympathy bounce this weekend.
Speaking of Treyc, a big shout-out is in order to Nick, whose comment on yesterday’s post is well worth reading. Nick noted that the iTunes comments and ratings could be used as a proxy indicator of the likely bottom two, which enabled him to pinpoint John and Treyc over an hour before the vote closed. I’ll certainly be consulting this metric this coming weekend.
From a betting point of view I must say I am not best pleased with the show’s last-minute decision to eliminate only one act, going back on the format they had announced on their own website (double eliminations weeks 1-4, single eliminations weeks 5-7). Bookies had to ditch their “double elimination – to go” markets and form “next elimination” markets, and the Betfair “bottom three” market was thrown into confusion. Punters (and bookies) rely on predictability of rules, and it will make our lives more difficult if we don’t know until the end of each Saturday show whether one or two acts will be going.
How did you fare if you had a bet this weekend, and which acts do you think are in most danger for this coming weekend? Do use the comments box to let us know.
in 7 years ov watching xfactor ive never seen a contestent thrown 2 the wolves as john was he had early slots in all 3 weeks he was in and cleary they wanted him out next week the early slots shud go 2 wagner and katie the running order will cleary tell us who they want out it has 2 b a double eviction in the next 2 weeks as they r simply running out ov time the final is on 11th ov dec 2 accomandate christmas number 1 if it is i c bell ammie and pejie next week followed by wagner and trey c the week after i no its early days but i cant c past a matt rebecca final 2 lump on i av
Thanks Dan. The top 3 from my iTunes analysis are Matt Cardle, Cher Lloyd and Katie Waissel in that order. The bottom is very close with Belle Amie, Mary Byrne and Paije all looking vulnerable.
I’m going to do exactly the same at 7:45pm next Sunday and see what happens. I’m also trying to get a fix on how many Tweets are generated on Twitter for each act during the show as I think that might be another indicator of voting.
It is interesting that the viewer has no way to protest an act that they don’t like. I think an act that generates negative coverage is also in a position to generate a positive opinion too. The danger zone is when there is no reaction from the media/audience, such was the case with TreyC. I think that is why she was in the bottom two despite performing better than many of the others on the night.
Surely Bellamy to go this week, although they’re quite short at 9/4. Think Paije might get a better slot this week given that he was first up this week.
Might throw in Aiden as a lively outsider (35 currently on betfair), don’t think he can go another crappy performance…
I’m intrigued to see how a Halloween theme works out for Aiden. Halloween’s supposed to be about pretend-scariness, but Aiden can look genuinely frightening…