The X Factor UK (Series 6)

The X Factor UK (Series 6)
Series	6
Broadcast from	22 August 2009 – 13 December 2009
Judges	Louis Walsh Dannii Minogue Cheryl Cole Simon Cowell
Presenters	Dermot O'Leary Holly Willoughby
Network	ITV ITV2
Number of finalists	12
Winner	Joe McElderry
Runner-up	Olly Murs
Notable returnees	Rikki Loney (1,5) Danyl Johnson (3) Dominic Harris (4) Joe McElderry (4) Cher Lloyd (5) Duane Lamonte (5) Rachel Adedeji (5)
Ratings	13.00 millions
Chronology
Previous	Series 5
Next	Series 7

Series 6 of The X Factor premiered on August 22, 2009 and ended on December 13, 2009 on ITV.

It was won by 18-year old pop singer Joe McElderry who was part of the Boys category mentored by Cheryl Cole, giving her second win in a row as a mentor. Until 2015, he was the youngest winner in the show's history. He had previously auditioned for the show in 2007 but withdrew as he felt he was too young.

This series was watched by an average of 13 million viewers - over 2.5 million more than the previous series.

Production

The show was presented by Dermot O'Leary for the third year running, with spin-off show The Xtra Factor presented by Holly Willoughby on ITV2. Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole returned as judges.

Judges

Louis Walsh	Dannii Minogue	Cheryl Cole	Simon Cowell

Twists/Changes

Audtions: Auditions were held in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow. In a change to previous years, auditions were held in front of a live audience due to the success of a similar system on Britain's Got Talent. However, Glaswegian auditionees had already been judged using the old format, meaning that they had to apply again, as their initial audition was void.

Live Show Format Change: There was a further change in the format of the live shows which saw the finalists performing every Saturday night with the results announced on Sundays. The live final was also held over two nights for the first time. However, this is the only series where all the contestants wore the same outfits as the performance night each week, unlike the judges.

Finalists

Act		Category	Finish	Elimination
	Kandy Rain 22-25, various places	Groups	12th week one	Deadlock
	Rikki Loney 22, Glasgow	Boys	11th week two	Majority vote
	Miss Frank 22-25, various places	Groups	10th week three	Deadlock
	Rachel Adedeji 18, London	Girls	9th week four	Deadlock
X Factor 2010 Live Tour
	Lucie Jones 18, Pentyrch, Cardiff	Girls	8th week five	Deadlock
	Jamie Archer 34, Putney, London	Over 25s	7th week six	Deadlock
	John & Edward 18, Dublin, Ireland	Groups	6th week seven	Majority vote
	Lloyd Daniels 17, Treharris, Merthyr Tydfil	Boys	5th quarter-final	Fewest public votes
	Danyl Johnson 27, Arborfield, Berkshire	Over 25s	4th semi-final	Fewest public votes
	Stacey Solomon 20, Dagenham, Essex	Girls	3rd final	Fewest public votes
	Olly Murs 25, Witham, Essex	Over 25s	Runner-up final	Fewest public votes
	Joe McElderry 18, South Shields, Tyne & Wear	Boys	Winner final	Most public votes

Selection process

Auditions

See: List of The X Factor UK auditionees (series 6)

In a change to previous years, auditions were moved from a room to an arena in front of an audience similar to the format used by Britain's Got Talent.

Previous contestants who returned to audition were eventual winner Joe McElderry who auditioned in Series 4 but opted to leave as he felt he was too young at the time. Finalists Rikki Loney and Rachel Adedeji also auditioned during Series 5 but both were rejected at bootcamp. Danyl Johnson auditioned during Series 3 but did not make it past the producers auditions. Series 7 finalist Cher Lloyd auditioned the previous year but did not get far.

Bootcamp

See: Bootcamp (UK series 6)

Judges' Houses

See: Judges' Houses (UK series 6)

Summary of judges' houses

Judge	Category	Location	Guest mentor(s)	Contestants eliminated
Cole	Boys	Marrakech	Will Young	Daniel Fox, Duane Lamonte, Ethan Boroian
Cowell	Over 25s	Los Angeles	Sinitta	Daniel Pearce, Nicole Lawrence, Treyc Cohen
Minogue	Girls	Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai	Kylie Minogue	Despina Pilavakis, Nicole Jackson, Stacey McClean
Walsh	Groups	Lake Como, Italy	Ronan Keating	De-Tour, Harmony Hood, Project A

Live Shows

Results Summary

Weekly results per act
Week		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Quarter-Final	Semi-Final	Final
Eliminated
	Joe McElderry	3rd 12.7%	4th 13.3%	2nd 12.9%	3rd 10.2%	2nd 17.2%	2nd 16.0%	1st 34.2%	1st 37.1%	1st 42.2%	1st 52.2%	Winner 61.3%
	Olly Murs	7th 6.2%	5th 10.6%	7th 8.6%	2nd 13.4%	3rd 12.9%	5th 10.3%	6th 9.8%	3rd 18.7%	2nd 19.6%	2nd 27.7%	Runner-Up 38.7%
	Stacey Solomon	2nd 12.9%	1st 15.4%	5th 10.7%	5th 8.1%	5th 10.8%	1st 25.5%	2nd 17.7%	2nd 20.1%	3rd 19.4%	3rd 20.1%	Eliminated (final)
	Danyl Johnson	1st 27.1%	7th 6.5%	9th 7.6%	1st 36.2%	1st 19.6%	3rd 15.5%	3rd 15.5%	4th 12.5%	4th 18.8%	Eliminated (semi-final)
	Lloyd Daniels	6th 4.5%	2nd 15.0%	8th 8.0%	8th 5.5%	4th 12.0%	6th 9.7%	4th 12.1%	5th 11.6%	Eliminated (quarter-final)
	John & Edward	8th 4.5%	8th 5.6%	6th 9.2%	6th 6.6%	7th 9.2%	4th 14.6%	5th 10.7%	Eliminated (week 7)
	Jamie Archer	5th 8.9%	3rd 14.4%	4th 11.2%	4th 8.7%	6th 9.5%	7th 8.4%	Eliminated (week 6)
	Lucie Jones	4th 10.5%	6th 8.1%	3rd 11.3%	7th 6.4%	8th 8.8%	Eliminated (week 5)
	Rachel Adedeji	11th 2.3%	10th 3.7%	1st 15.4%	9th 4.9%	Eliminated (week 4)
	Miss Frank	9th 4.0%	9th 3.9%	10th 5.1%	Eliminated (week 3)
	Rikki Loney	10th 3.0%	11th 3.5%	Eliminated (week 2)
	Kandy Rain	12th 1.5%	Eliminated (week 1)
Bottom Two		Adedeji, Kandy Rain	Adedeji, Loney	Johnson, Miss Frank	Adedeji, Daniels	John & Edward, Jones	Archer, Daniels	John & Edward, Murs	No final showdown or judges' votes; results were based on public votes alone
Walsh's vote to eliminate		Adedeji*	N/A*	Johnson	Daniels	Jones	Archer	Murs
Minogue's vote to eliminate		Kandy Rain	Loney	Miss Frank	Daniels	John & Edward	Daniels	John & Edward
Cole's vote to eliminate		Kandy Rain	Adedeji	Johnson	Adedeji	John & Edward	Archer	John & Edward
Cowell's vote to eliminate		Adedeji	Loney	Miss Frank	Adedeji	Jones	Daniels	John & Edward
Eliminated		Kandy Rain 2 of 4 Votes Deadlock	Rikki Loney 2 of 3 Votes Majority Vote	Miss Frank 2 of 4 Votes Deadock	Rachel Adedeji 2 of 4 Votes Deadlock	Lucie Jones 2 of 4 Votes Deadlock	Jamie Archer 2 of 4 Votes Deadlock	John & Edward 3 of 4 Votes Majority Vote	Lloyd Daniels 11.6% To Save	Danyl Johnson 18.8% To Save	Stacey Solomon 20.1% To Save	Olly Murs 38.7 To Win

• In Week 1, Walsh was absent from the result show due to the sudden death of Boyzone’s Stephen Gately, a band which he was a manager of, at the time. Due to his act, Kandy Rain being in the Bottom Two, an automatic vote was cast to eliminate Adedeji on the typical assumption that Walsh would have voted to eliminate Adedeji if he was present, which happens when a judge has one of their acts in the Bottom Two.
• In Week 2, Walsh was absent from the result show due to his attendance of Stephen Gately’s funeral. However, during The Xtra Factor, which aired later that night, he made a phone call where he confirmed that he would have voted to eliminate Loney if he was present.

Ratings

Template:UK6ratings

Controversies

Bootcamp

On 2 August 2009, it was reported that some bootcamp contestants felt they had been poorly treated by the show's producers; one compared the experience with that of a concentration camp and another claimed that those competing were only allowed to use the toilet twice a day. However, a spokesperson for the programme refuted the claims, saying "Yes, it was long hours but they knew what they were signing up for. The hopefuls got breakfast at the hotel and decent food throughout the day".

New audition format

The new audition format (whereby auditions are held in front of a studio audience) was criticised by fans, by Cole and by certain former contestants.

Recycled contestants

The show was criticised in September 2009 for "recycling" contestants, as three singers from the final 24 acts had already been in pop bands, two had auditioned for the show in previous years and one had appeared on Britain's Got Talent.

Danyl Johnson

Controversy began after the first live show on 10 October, after Minogue commented on press reports regarding Danyl Johnson's sexuality, sparking an online backlash. Minogue's comments received some media coverage resulting in Minogue releasing a statement on the issue:

"I want to clear up exactly what happened on last night's X Factor show and post my sincere apologies to anyone who took offense [sic]. I made a comment about Danyl changing the lyrics of his song. It was meant to be a humorous moment about the fact he has an opportunity to have fun with his song. An openly bi-sexual singing a song that is lyrically a 'girl's song'. Danyl and I were joking about the very same thing in rehearsals on Friday, so it carried on to the show. I'd like to apologise to anyone that was offended by my comments, it was never my intention. I spoke to Danyl straight after the show last night and he wasn't offended or upset by my comments, and knew exactly what I was saying."

Minogue also apologised on the live results show on 11 October, saying Danyl was not upset by her comments. It has since been reported that Ofcom received around 4000 complaints from viewers over the comment.

Team Rankings

1. Over 25s (mentored by Simon Cowell)

2. Boys (mentored by Cheryl Cole)

3. Girls (mentored by Dannii Minogue)

4. Groups (mentored by Louis Walsh)

Trivia

• One notable auditionee was British gymnast Louis Smith who was criticized by all four judges for his singing skills and did not pass the audition stage. He went on to win a silver medal at the London 2012 Olympics.
• This is the second consecutive series where only one judge had a full category until Week 6.
• This is the first series to feature the most number of times where the result went to deadlock. The result went to deadlock for four consecutive weeks out of the five weeks the result went to deadlock. The feature of having the result going to deadlock five times was repeated in 2012 and 2014.
  • This is the first series where only two acts were eliminated in a majority vote and repeated in 2015. However, in this series, the second act eliminated in a majority vote did not finish last in the public vote.
• This is the first series where only one judge had all her acts eliminated by the public vote, with her first two acts eliminated via deadlock, and her highest-placing act finishing in third place. This was repeated in 2012 and 2015.
• This is the first series where four different acts won the public vote throughout the live shows.
• This is the only series where Cowell has the strongest category but not the winning act.