The X Factor Live

This year, The X Factor is haemorrhaging contestants almost as quickly as it is viewers. This weekend there will a double double elimination (postponed from last weekend), with four acts in all being sent home across Saturday and Sunday nights, leaving eight finalists in the competition.

Instead of trying to build excitement – and viewers – across a longer run, this slash-and-burn approach to getting rid of singers at a rate that’s hard to keep up with only seems to fuel the fires of show’s decline. One recent episode pulled in a record low of 4.3 million viewers.

You can bet this means that next year there will be “radical changes” and “overhauls” aplenty. And so it goes on.