Quintin Jardine's blog

I believe that something called The X Factor, came to an end last night and that 20 million UK viewers tuned in to ITV to watch the final. I know very little about the X Factor, beyond what I see in headlines, but my impression from those is that its purpose is to give the mainly mediocre their five minutes of fame, and that it pulls in viewers by relentless promotion and by letting its judges get confrontational. That’s right, same as ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, but less posh. Seems to work, though; if it pulls one third of the British population then it must generate mountainous advertising revenue, and ITV surely needs the money.