Music and Advertising in Television II

Scholarly Research Paper from the year 2008 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 1,1, London Metropolitan University (London Metropolitan University), language: English, abstract: The X Factor is a reality pop program which first aired in the UK in September 2004 and which is still on screens today. The history of the sector is multi-faceted with the very first reality pop series, New Zealand s Popstars , dating back to 1999. The X Factor emerged after Pop Idol , a similar show to Popstars , was put on indefinite hiatus after its second run. Ever since its first series, The X Factor has gone from strength to strength, with audience and voting figures increasing with each series. The single most important person behind The X Factor is music mogul Simon Cowell who created the show back in 2004. His television company SyCo TV produces the program together with Fremantle Media s talkbackTHAMES. The X Factor is aimed at reality TV s target demographic and manages to attract an audience of approximately 8-9m during its weekly live broadcasts. As the reality genre has proven particularly amenable to TV and media convergence, The X Factor does not just rely on the television set to communicate its message to its audiences. It also relies on other platforms , like the internet, live events and telephone voting, hence altering popular music consumption. With the audience determining the winner of The X Factor several albums released by contestants have reached the UK Albums Chart; six of them making it to number one. The X Factor is often heavily criticized for standardizing pop music. Winners of The X Factor are often referred to as over-hyped and over-manufactured artists with reality pop programs being accused of not producing important or lasting musicians. However the commercial success of The X Factor is indisputable, which as a result, continues to encourage the production of further X Factor series as well as similar shows to go on.