A bunch of newspapers are wondering who's going to win between American Idol and X Factor US which is premiering in September 2011.
Many TV observers have said that American Idol can't survive with the acerbic wit, put-downs and dry humor of the one and only Simon Cowell.
Without a doubt, he has been the biggest single reason why American Idol has been the hit that it has. He's made the difference between an ordinary albeit it tried and tested talent show format and a 30 million viewer mega hit.
But Simon wants a bigger slice of the profit pie. In the UK, The X Factor is his baby, he's not only a judge but also an executive producer. X Factor UK in many ways knocked the UK version of American Idol (known as Pop Idol) from TV sets there with its success. X Factor US has been one of the biggest TV successes, with 19 million viewers.
So will Simon bring the same success to X Factor US? It's a successful talent show format for sure, but has the US audience seen enough of singing talent shows? This season's American Idol has seen lower ratings than the previous two series... maybe it's because the level of talent, personalities and scandals are less than in other years, but could it be because audiences are tired of the format, tired of Seacrest and Cowell and the other judges or they have simply run out of decent talent?
The X Factor is very similar in format to American Idol.
They are both a singing contest for ordinary folk. Both feature a panel of 'expert' judges and rely on getting great stories from the ordinary folk e.g. rotten toothed, fat old guy working in humble telecoms job up to his armpits in debt but with a voice to make all women swoon, suddenly gets a chance and becomes an overnight sensation, fixes teeth, buys tux, becomes millionaire.
One of the big differences is that X Factor doesn't have an age limit on entrants, but you have to be 28 or younger to qualify for American Idol.
And then, and for me, this could be the biggest difference is that groups are allowed to enter. That would mean that the cute guy who can twirl on his head but can't sing to save his life has a chance to win. And that offers a real change of content for perhaps tired American Idol audiences.
It also means you get more novelty acts like Jedward (twins from Ireland who style their blond hair up straight and do really really bad school talent show-like performances with bad rapping, bad singing, bad dancing...but you can't help but kinda warm to their energy, enthusiasm, confidence and out and out balls.
The other big difference between X Factor and American Idol is that not everyone gets to compete against each other. Instead they are put into categories.
The X Factor categories are under 25, over 25 groups and groups and solo artists, boys and girls.
Each judge gets to mentor a category when it gets to end stages and you follow them through a boot camp. When at some point the judge will cry and say they are so proud of their proteges. This adds to some of the drama as the judges are also competitive with each other and there's often some bitchy comments between the judges and fun rivalry.
The final rounds are mostly the same: live finals, and the winners are chosen by audience voting
The biggest winner of the X Factor has been Leona Lewis who has broken the US market and beyond with her hit singles like "Bleeding Love" and two top selling albums "Spirit" and "Echo". A lot of the other X Factor winners haven't had much success at all. The first winner Steve Bronstein now signs in pizza parlors and pubs.
Fox Network will launch the US version of X factor in September 2011.
As CNN says: tt won't compete directly with American Idol, but if it's a huge smashing success, you might see the end of American Idol.
The whole CNN article is available here
