The rise and fall of The X Factor: Why it’s time to put Simon Cowell’s ‘televised karaoke’ out to pasture

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. But chances are slim that the name Dalton Harris – whose winner’s single “The Power of Love” went to number four last year before he promptly disappeared – just popped into your head. In a few weeks the winner will be signed up by Cowell’s record company, and is expected to sell at least a million albums.” The winner, Will Young, actually didn’t quite reach that lofty target, selling 880,000 copies of From Now On – but his single “Evergreen” was the biggest-selling single of the Noughties. : X Factor 2018 winner Dalton Harris performing This year saw the lacklustre launch of The X Factor: Celebrities, a desperate move from Cowell – given that he attempted an all-stars series back in 2006 before promptly dropping it – saying that it was “pointless” and that he was “never going to do it again”. “What we’re seeing is a big drop in the under-25 bracket,” Toby Syfret, a TV analyst from Enders Analysis, told the Guardian back in 2014, when The X Factor was already flailing.