Ratings down, but Barlow has improved The X Factor

IT'S THAT time of year again. The X Factor is dominating the weekend prime time TV schedules and the newspapers are devoting column inches to digging the knife in.

What was trailed - as breathlessly as ever by the show's shouting announcer - as a "massive twist" turned out to be the reality TV show equivalent of a drive-by shooting as four contestants left the show at the weekend.

Sadly they weren't the four worst contestants.

To make the pain all the worse, the triggers were pulled by the show's mentors who each had to nominate one of their own acts to leave the show. Not only was this twist quite nasty - forcing viewers to watch two likeable young people fall apart as they learned their fate - it also seemed unjust, with Amelia Lily and James Michael clearly deserving longer stints.

Had the elimination been put to the public, it is unlikely Louis Walsh (above, far left) would have been left with any contestants, so poor is the quality of his Over 25's category which now consists of the irritating Kitty, the former drag queen Johnny and a woman called Sami who bears an uncanny similarity to Peter Kay's character in Britain's Got The Pop Factor.

The four-way dumping was also cruel for another reason - viewers had to sit through 40 minutes of advertising-laden build-up before we got to the five minutes that mattered.

These less-than-happy rumblings comes with news that the show's ratings are marginally down on last year's, leading some commentators to question The X Factor's future.  

It seems incredible that a ratings dip from 13.5m in 2010 to 12.7m last week is considered evidence of audience unrest but perhaps this is a demonstration of how far ITV has come in recent years - from the channel no one wanted to watch or advertise on to the only show in town, with The X Factor, The Jonathan Ross Show and Downton Abbey providing weekend domination.

The truth is that far from being over, The X Factor is in better health than ever.

With regulars Simon Cowell, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole all leaving the show, there were doubts whether the format would survive with new judges Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland and Tulisa (above, from right to left). Instead it has thrived and discovered a new dynamic based on a return to the show's roots as a talent contest rather than freak show.  

You only have to watch the auditions of the The X Factor USA, where Cowell is rolling out the franchise in his further attempts at dark global domination, to realise how much better the UK programme works without him.  

When Cowell sees an auditionee there is a sense that he is judging them not on their talents but on their appearance and how much money he can personally make from them above everything else.  

Gary Barlow, on the other hand, seems genuinely motivated by singing talent and has the genuine experience to back it up. Yes he may have appeared in a video wearing trousers that exposed his buttocks and been responsible for years of sickly boy band bilge as a member of Take That, but he didn't sign Mr Blobby to his record label did he?

His negative comments have been honest rather than snide. He's funny too and appears to be playing quite a crafty game with his comments - a change from the tiresome camp pantomime jousting between Cowell and Louis Walsh of the past few years.

Simultaneously the show seems to have reinvented Barlow as a pop statesman. This weekend, The Observer proclaimed him cool and even called him "the sexy one".  Interestingly, many decades ago, when he was an A&R man, Simon Cowell refused to sign Take That because he thought Barlow was "too fat".  

Radically thinner, Barlow must feel like he's king of the world right now.

That said, he's hardly John Lennon is he? Nobody properly cool would have anything to do with The X Factor in a million years and neither should they.

With its cover versions and copycat makeovers the show gives us little more than facsimiles of proper artists - from the dozens of Adele-alikes who littered this year's auditions to the hotly tipped Frankie Cocozza's skinny-jeaned approximation of Pete Doherty - all willing to sign their creative independence away for a shot at fame.  

At least this year in Janet Devlin and Craig Colton the show has given us two shy, charming singers who don't fit the usual stereotypes.

For all its tawdry machinations and hype The X Factor remains a brilliant family show. Has any other TV programme ever given the press so many stories and its viewers so much to talk about? In families across Britain it's the most discussed topic of conversation and in these current gloomy political times we need the distraction. ·