Congratulations to Louisa Johnson, who has justified red-hot favouritism to win the X Factor. Congratulations, too, to X Factor producers – a Plan A has come off at last. And congratulations to Sofabet commenters who were confident from the beginning that Plan A would come off. We’ve been sceptical at times about how effectively they were selling her, but you can’t argue with the results, and I’m content to end the series with a modest profit on the win market.
With only 5.7 million people bothering to watch yesterday’s show live, however, you do have to wonder whether squeezing out the golden egg has come at the cost of half-killing the goose.
The markets had a bit of a wobble during the first round of songs, after repeated references to how Reggie N Bollie “could win” and the vote “could still go either way”. Louisa went as big as 1/3 and Reggie N Bollie as short as 9/4 in places. But wording is important here, and at no point did Caroline or Olly tell us the vote was “close”, as they surely would have done had they not been worried about incurring the wrath of Ofcom: everything they said was compatible with a large lead for one act or the other, and only a theoretical possibility of that changing. The question was, who was ahead.
It’s the comments to the winner’s songs that usually provide the biggest clues as to which is about to be released as a single. And the comments to Reggie N Bollie’s version said nothing about the song itself, instead focusing on how lovely they’d been to work with, with the appearance of kids on stage adding to the valedictory feel. If the show had been about to launch that version as a putative Christmas No 1, the judges would surely have said something in praise of it.
Louisa then got much better staging for her version, with the red X turning white and the crowd waving their torches in the darkness. All four judges stood to applaud, which they hadn’t for Reggie N Bollie. Cowell referred to the song this time, telling her “you turned a good song into a great song”, adding “we are witnessing the birth of a star”. The markets reacted accordingly, Louisa contracting to 1.08.
Now the wait begins for the high point of our X Factor season – the reveal of the week-by-week voting statistics. We’ll be back with an analysis post in the next day or two. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
And congratulations to Dean F
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19hatUczTYPQekSDMAy92jiCQ7j29m-FCLXTb1s8TbP8
Interestingly, only Dean F and David Cook did better than the overall Betfair market prediction as of the end of October, though Martin and SirMills managed to tie with the market.
I hope that everyone has had (with the benefit of a little hindsight week on week) a more successful year than this!
Anyway, with the limitations of displaying the score below notwithstanding…
Predicted Finishing Positions Rank Score (Lower is better)
Dean F 1 26
David Cook 2 28
Martin 3 30
SirMills 3 30
Betfair Exchange 2015-10-29 3 30
Vülker 6 32
Marc 6 32
Dazzle 6 32
Sagand 6 32
mb79493 10 34
Chatterbox5200 10 34
Steve 12 36
Daniel 12 36
Snowfall 12 36
Patrick 12 36
Kenneth Chow 12 36
annie 17 38
Mech 18 40
Panos 18 40
Fudd 18 40
Andy 18 40
Jessica Hamby 22 42
360 22 42
Ben Cook 22 42
Cath 22 42
JScouser2002 22 42
PhillipAzevedo 27 44
Caro 27 44
The Maestro 27 44
Andy, No 2 27 44
Luke 27 44
Jack 32 46
Tim B 32 46
Phil 34 50
Donald 34 50
Oxobb 34 50
Stu 37 52
Alan 37 52
Linda 39 54
Piresistable 39 54
Dan 39 54
Lia 42 56
Pimpin4rizeal 43 60
Thanks again for doing this Mech – I’m happy with third! Congrats all, I trust you’ve all had a successful series. Thanks to Daniel and Andrew for an excellent bunch of articles.
I wasn’t last!!! I wasn’t last!!! LOL
Nice to win both the outright winner and the prediction game 🙂
Thanls Mech, great job, you are magic on stats.well done to al!
Blimey, that was quick. I’m guessing you didn’t bother with the backup article? I didn’t see much live, but looks like the producers were flawless in achieving objectives this year from start to finish, even if it sometimes left a bad taste in the mouth.
As many have already said, I think the only off-script moment was losing Sean in Week 2
I was thinking that the winner’s single could have been intended for SMM as well. Obviously Louisa was clear #1 aim for it but it didn’t strike as a convincing song for a lot of the other top 13.
Congrats Louisa Johnson, youngest winner of the X Factor ever – finally breaking the curse of teenage girl early favourite. She has personally done nothing wrong throughout the series and is clearly very talented and deserving.
Well done to TPTB also, who have got what they want here. However, I agree with Daniel, have they stomped all over their franchise to get to this point? Next year could very possibly be the last.
Well done to people who predicted this outcome in the comments. All I ask is that next year we all get a little less personally involved in it all – heavens knows that’s the worst thing you can do if you’re gambling.
Thanks Sofabet for providing excellent coverage yet again, and you helped make what was probably not a very good series of the X Factor great as far as I was concerned.
Now I wait anxiously for the detailed results, because that’s when we can figure out when Louisa won it, and how right we were about our various thoughts throughout the series.
“you do have to wonder whether squeezing out the golden egg has come at the cost of half-killing the goose”
Absolutely – they need to realise that by nuking everyone else that’s any good, they’re making a shit show. And even with Louisa they consistently ballsed up week after week. Why they persisted with John Lewis ballads when she was clearly more comfortable doing the likes of Man’s World I will never understand. Just make it a level playing field and only nuke when absolutely necessary.
Congrats on another great year Daniel.
And congrats to the producers who were deadly accurate with their kills this year – they did what they had to do. As has been shown in seasons past, it’s not always simple to get the public to play ball.
We’ve not seen the numbers yet, but I wonder if they had to hold their nerve once or twice!
This evening was absurd. Same tricks, different year.
Just waiting for the voting statistics now. Surely it can’t have been close – they wouldn’t have risked the R&B version being released – they would have been a laughing stock.
God they’re really dragging this out before we get to the stats
Last year was rather speedy, I’m tired
Yeah the last couple of years they’ve done it at the beginning of the show, they must have realised a lot of ppl watch it just for that so have decided to keep us hanging on.
Yeah last year was almost instantaneous.
Sorry to post again, but Dear TPTB:
http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o532/BronzedMe/GIFs/Fucks%20Folder/stabyouwithaforktumblr.gif
Have they said they’re going to do it this year? I know they usually do, but it hasn’t been mentioned and we’re half way through.
They said last night that olly and Caroline were doing but maybe changed their minds
They will do. On Xtra Factor is just who was 1st and 2nd each week anyway. The stats are properly revealed on the website.
Voting stats! Voting stats! Voting stats!
http://www.itv.com/xfactor/news/the-2015-voting-stats-are-in
http://www.itv.com/xfactor/news/the-2015-voting-stats-are-in
Enjoy
Vote stats in Louisa won every week bar 4 and 5 (RnB and Che respectively)
Ooh, the Week 1 voting leak was bogus then!
They’re up on ITVs website!!!
But it was far from in the bag
Haha, Nick predicted that Josh Daniel would win the show. Yet he didn’t/wasn’t allowed to put him through to the lives.
It’s happened before, with Dannii in series 6.
So there was never any real doubt throughout that Louisa walked away with it.
http://www.itv.com/xfactor/news/the-2015-voting-stats-are-in
Sorry! So excited forgot to post link
Yeah the fact that Lauren always polled worse than Louisa meant she never stood a chance. Anton really didn’t poll that well, did he?
The fact that Louisa polled third in Week 5 in spite of the pimp slot meant that she far from had it in the bag going into the Semi. Did Che’s lyrics flub help his vote that week?
I think so, and perhaps strong vote transfer from Anton to Ché also.
So much for the gospel according to The Star. Week 1 vote leak clearly just made up.
Wow, a few close ones, percentage wise. Overall though, they had it in check. I’m amazed Louisa won week one though, that said.
Worst x factor ever and hopefully thats the end only world class singer to win it was leona its past its sell by date 6 million viewers last night pathetic
Wow crazy that Louisa didn’t win week 4 and wasn’t far off sing off in week 5 though everything was rather tight. Seems that when 4th Impact left she got a vote boost in werk 6 also because Man’s World was her best performance. She won the final easily bur they also took a risk with RnB ad their huge pimping was hitting above Louisa votes for 2 weeks
Ok, these stats warrant a closer look when I have more time than now, but what’s clear is that Louisa was never running away with it except for in the final.
Producers gave her her best performing song as performance of the series, whilst Reggie ‘N’ Bollie did not get their best song, which seemed to be Week 4’s “Shut Up And Dance With Me”.
Star leak was wrong.
Week 5 saw all 5 acts separated by just 6% – no wonder we were all so confused that week. That was the night where every single act was predicted both to leave and to win by commenters here, and it kinda makes sense when you see that!
There’s lots more to dissect, but for me, later.
Monica did poll quite high week1. What a hatchet job!
Alien were ahead of Kiera!!! Shock!
Che bounced to first!!! Much sympathy!!!
Wow, week 5 was super close at the top! Che only just edged it.
Week 6 was super close at the bottom – only 0.3% between Lauren and Che!
Sean Miley Moore never connected with the public did he? Pimp slot and praised to high heaven, yet couldn’t reach the Top 5?
What I always find strange is how Che got a huge sympathy bounce week 5 but not in the final he was left trailing far behind.
So Louisa’s moment in week 4 didn’t top vote but she wasn’t given the pimp as RnB got that week 5 she was ill bit wad very tight. Week 6 TPTB finally hit the moment and it was with Louisa most natural performance . She could have got more of that but either way she won
He didn’t forget his lyrics in the final. Maybe he should have… 😉
Second bounce is nearly always weaker, and bounces don’t seem to work very well anyway in the final. There have been 4 semis with sing-offs. The winners of all of those sing-offs (Cher Lloyd, Luke Friend, Andrea, Ché) have all been first to leave in the final.
Something else to note – many of us suspected RnB were barely clearing the bottom 2 most weeks when in fact they were never near it, their lowest polls being 7th out of 13 and 5th out of 9. Otherwise they were always in the top half of the table.
Couple of interesting ones. Week 5 was close at the top not the bottom (see here for why that can be relevant https://sofabet.com/2015/12/02/x-factor-2015-week-5-review-part-one/#comment-68133)
Week 6 – Che got big sympathy bounce!
Reggie n Bollie’s song of the series wasn’t their best scoring one!
That said it was the one that really lifted them into contention
Aye but surely their performance of the series would be from the week they polled first!!
They would never be allowed!!!
Possibly, but all I am saying is its not exactly outrageous they got that song as it lifted them from 7th to 2nd. Week 3 would have been the travesty. RnB polled much better week on week than I ever thought, but I am also sure TPTB were confident they would put Louisa in place to win even after the week 5 vote as otherwise they would never have given RnB the week 6 pimp slot.
Well they knew the winners song up thier sleeve.
Good call!!!
And the Ghanian embassy, and previous experience. Loads of dampening tactics could have been employed on RnB if the producers had ever needed to. And at the end of the day an RnB win probably wouldn’t have been that disastrous for them.
Got to feel a bit sorry for Lauren, as she could have made the final if it hadn’t been for the deramp. TPTB clearly didn’t want to risk any vote split which might have let R&B through. Having said that eleven acts might be feeling that they could have done better without the deramps.
Yeah looking at it Lauren not being in the final was most likely due to the vote split. Lauren got close in week 3 but not really there after.
Congrats to all, especially to Stoney, was not not as clear cut as it seemed and good that was generally posted and felt on Sofabet.
TPTB got their winner.
Louisa seemed to benefit most from 4I departure and they sure went for Che once he topped Louisa. With so many double elimatiions and pimpimg tptb had it under control. Winners song tonight was great, but even down to that audience at Wembley only allowed use lights for Louisa. That is a real good winners single!
Over now, Louisa won. Will review stats in more details later, wine to be drank 🙂
Thanks to all on Sofabet for great reading and comments, and to Daniel and Andrew great great effort through what really was a difficult season to watch and keep going. Sofabet kept us all going 🙂
Monica must be miffed that she didn’t make the tour based on the revealed voting statistics. Not only did she just miss the cut-off by coming 8th, she also polled the best on average of the remaining contestants.
Instead she’s passed over for Sean Miley Moore who never set the votes alight in any way shape or form.
Do we think that they went for Che? Whilst the lyrics flub generated sympathy, everything else that week was positive. Had they accepted a Che win at that point, but he fucked it up for himself by forgetting the words?
I doubt it, TPTB normally go with a sympathy bounce and they likely wanted Che in the final by that point anyway and representing Nick.
Remember Amelia when she returned top poll once week was in Bottom two the next then topped poll again then B2 again…
At that point in week 5 TPTB would have given Che the help to try reach the final but also knew that after his initial sympathy bounce they can steer him away from victory with what they did in week 6 and 7.
Oh yeah I forgot he was on a bounce. Jeez, that was the week I was saying to tread carefully as they’ve been killing bounces all series.
I thought the voting would be more sporadic than this – surprised that Lauren’s week three performance didn’t top the vote, and surprised that Billie Jean did!
In the mood for mild comic relief?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBfNTqB_IRo
Look at Rita’s spelling of “Johnson”
No mention in the comments of the shockingly obvious throwing under the bus of RNB at the last minute – the winners song was only suitable for one person, and that was Louisa. Even the crowd at Wembley seemed completely baffled by it. They’ve done different songs for artists in previous years, no?
Last year they changed to just the same song. Either way Louisa had it won at that point anyway
Last year Andrea had a different song, they had a different song for Fleur too but couldn’t get the rights for it so her and Ben had the same song.
True but the lions share of votes will have been in by that point.
Well that’s XF overload for this weekend. Thanks to Daniel and Andrew for some great articles, and to everyone for the comments. I agreed with much – and disagreed with others – but it’s always good to have such a range of opinion.
So relieved to get my 14k back from reggie and bollie not winning. Just enjoying a big bottle of stella before bed. Next year i’ll gamble on the x factor in a complete different way. Much more aware of the manipulations and dangers to be faced with thanks to everyone on here it is a great column learnt plenty from it ☺
There’s money to be made from this game if you get it right – I’d wager it’s a lot easier than the sports market in fact. Congrats, enjoy your night knowing that your 14k is safe (plus extra 500 on the side)
The voting stats explain a couple of things from the final last night. Firstly Che was kept in his comfort zone – a lyrics flub could have changed everything. He won the vote on his previous sympathy bounce, and he seemed to play the nice guy last night, when he was the awkward but sexy outsider, he polled much better. I suspect he was told to keep smiling regardless – against his interests. It also explains the negativity towards him by a Simon – he could have been a forgotten lyric away from challenging for the win.
Second, RnB had to be kept right in niche. They couldn’t prevent the energy or the audience reaction, but making then as non-mainstream as possible, and emphasising that it was a singing contest, continually before Louisa, was needed.
This could have gone badly wrong – and I have to wonder why they didn’t push Lauren into the final, as Louisa beat her on every vote, unlike RnB and Che.
Off topic but interesting. Sophia Wardman has posted an update to her blog: Judge’s Houses: Part 2
https://survivingrealitytv.wordpress.com
Great Lia, look forward to reading that.
Thanks Lia! And thanks for reading 🙂
Sophia’s dissertation is essential reading for all Sofabetters. Your insight along with Kitty’s from the following season are most interesting.
I look forward to your recounts of the lives, a season where One Direction must have been the Plan A without a doubt.
I only going to z land now, great great read, and fair play for coming on here. You will need all your mental health skills here lo!.
@survivingrealtv I’ve been loving your blogs, thanks for writing them. Can’t wait for the live show instalments!
Welcome to Sofabet, Sophia!
Hi Sophia, love your blog. Glad you joined us! xx
This is an amazing read! Thank you. I think it should probably be pointed out that Sophia Wardman is from Belle Amie, because I didn’t know who she was until I clicked on it…
It would appear there’s some solid vote transfer evidence in the stats with Louisa picking up from 4I and Lauren – the theory that app voting would give some data on who shares votes with who stacks up here – potentially a Che, RnB, Louisa final was always going to give her enough votes to win
I think people are playing up the lyrics flub way more than it deserves to be. I’m sure it was a factor in Ché’s vote that week, but equally we can look at sympathy bounce, Anton vote transfer, and relatively poor nights for Reggie ‘N’ Bollie and Louisa as a good explanation for this.
I doubt that Ché topping the vote with a mere 22% (from a 5 person field) caused any alarm bells whatsoever for producers. The problem was how poor Louisa’s vote was that week.
Che’s “journey” is the most interesting for me.
Week 1 pretty average (5th – 8.7%) with poor running order and decent treatment
Week 2 improves markedly (3rd – 12.5%) with much better treatment but still a poor running order
Week 3 he gets pimp slot and gets a small increase to 14.0% (3rd). Lauren Murray smashes One Last Time and collapses from around 17.0 to 5.5 on Betfair, in the penultimate slot. Detracts hugely from Che’s pimp slot. If it was not for Paris, she is getting deramped badly with License to Kill. She would have not gone from 11.2% to 14.1% nor collapsed on BF. She would’ve dropped to around 10% which would have made her 5th and likely to hit b2 the following week. Che’s pimp would have been more effective and he likely tops vote by a small margin. He would’ve shortened based off this.
Week 4 he opens show. Hits b2. Is 1% off safety. Had Lauren not unintentionally detracted from him week before, he’s got enough vote extra from previous week to not fall into b2. Lauren or 4th Impact would’ve been b2 instead.
Week 5 he forgets lyrics & tops vote. Had he not been b2 the week before, but not forgot lyrics, he nails Hello, probably tops vote anyway and goes fav outright.
From there can’t call what happens outright.
In the above scenario, its likely that you would have got Anton vs 4th Impact in that week 4 b2 instead of Anton vs Che. The following week, Lauren vs Louisa, huge viewing figs and probably a James Arthur passage to victory.
The thing I dont understand looking at the stats is why they went after Anton so badly. He polled well in week 1 but nothing spectacular. Why pimp him through the auditions only to go after him in week 2 if he was no real threat to plan A?
Something behind the scenes, I reckon
Because they were going after everyone bar Louisa one way or another? Why waste time…
Two things:
Reggie n Bollie were 7th in Week 1. Everyone below him was out in the first three weeks.
TPTB did not take any chances with Louisa, pushing her hard despite ALREADY being ahead from the get-go.
Anyone else think there is value in betting Lousia won’t be Christmas number one? The viewing figures are down a lot, it’s a poor song choice compared to past years and she’d have to stay number 1 for twos weeks. I can’t imagine many people streaming it and that is making up more and more of the chart.
Possibly yeah. Because of the two week thing especially, she may not hang on. I think Justin Bieber would be the one to topple her.
Think it’s worth a punt actually.
Thinking about the Daily Star vote leak I can see a few possible scenarios now we know the full story
1. There’s the theory that the Star are only seeing phone votes these days not app votes. Entirely possible that the leak was phone votes only with Anton clearing up with phone votes while Louisa was getting more 5x app votes from fans. Voting numbers at the beginning are so low it wouldn’t take much to cause those swings.
2. Anton coming third in week one spooked producers enough to put a leak out to encourage non-Anton fans to vote (although if that was the case I’d pick a bigger circulation paper to leak to)
3. The Daily Star had duff information
Think its more likely to be
4. They make this stuff up on quiet news days.
Heard the recorded version of Louisa’s coronation song on my way to work today. Have to say I’m shocked and not in a good way: it does not sound like her! It sounds like a cheap Mariah knock off and all the richness of her tone is gone. Very generic. Big WTF moment!
It’s radio one’s track of the day today, I just heard it and have to say exactly the same. I mean, I think it was a poor choice (especially after last years was decent as far as winners singles go) but if it wasn’t generic enough already, all of the life has been drained from it too.
It sounded much better live! Honestly, it was a mixing screw up, like she’s never had during the show. Not the time to get de-ramped…
Not a fan. She riffs all over the shop!
Thanks to all you sofabetters for an entertaining season. Much more entertaining than the show itself, which seems to have passed its time. I will be studying your tips very carefully for Eurovision, Dean F and David Cook, although I probably won’t entirely desert my winning formula of top five for Sweden and bottom five for UK.
Did anyone catch any vote totals across the series
I have
8 million for the final
2.5 million for week 5
3 million for week 4
(unless I’m mistaken)
Meanwhile, with perfect timing SVT have confirmed their hosts for Stockholm in the last few minutes… You’ll be delighted to hear that Petra Mede returns but this time with reigning champion Mans Zelmerlow.
The release of the voting figures made it look close – R&B certainly ran it closer than I thought leading up to the final. However reviewing the breakdown I suspect that TPTB were always reasonably confident that they would get Louisa across the line, and indeed she did pull away at the end. As ever the voting breakdown reveals that more votes were cast on Sunday (almost 2/3 of the total) than on the Saturday, and Louisa managed to pick up 60% of those against 40% for R&B. As others have said TPTB have access to the voting data which must give them good information on voting patterns and possible vote transfers. Even on the weeks where it was close at the top they were probably fairly confident that more votes would transfer to Louisa rather than R&B. In the end it looks like they were happy to run with R&B into the final, even massively pimping them along the way. The winners song was late in the day to make too much difference to the vote, but shows how they could have been to de-ramped if needed. Had TPTB felt that R&B were really in with a chance I think that they would have given them a different song, no way would they risk the ridicule they would have received if that was the winners single.
They picked their winner and got them across the line. If – and it’s a very big if – Louisa does go on to be successful I’m sure they’ll feel that the ends did justify the means, but it certainly didn’t make for a good series in terms of viewing.