Im with Tom22 on this one, I want an Xmas song, I rather like that aussie womans one, Gabriella whatsherface.

Never in doubt that result was it, given the way Cowell was shoving Alex down our throats all evening and that Alex got a WORLD star who is still young and hungry and the other two only got groups in the twilights of their careers

Cheryl is just going to be totally obnoxious now with her debut win, would have preffered JLS to win just to watch Cheryl's ego deflate but it was not to be

Leona Lewis Mach 2 here we come

And that's goodbye to X Factor for another year and now a well earned little break from RTV until Celebrity Big Brother 6 in January

Xtra Factor news

Shows won

Diana 1 show
JLS 1 show
Alex 2 (inc final) shows
Eoghan 6 shows

So the Daily Star was right then...Eoghan really was leading the votes in the first few weeks! Yikes!

I can't say I was surprised at the result, though I had been backing Alexandra to win. I do agree that Alexandra seemed to be more favoured, especially when watching The Xtra Factor programme show where the majority of the celebrities spoken to backed Alexandra to win. Though Brian Friedman did say he really wanted to see JLS win, and the vocal coach Yvie did back Eoghan, so it wasn't all aimed at Alexandra. Though Simon obviously favoured Alexandra, as did Dannii.

I hadn't noticed that they had changed Alexandra's voting VT though (to be honest after i've seen the voting VT once I don't pay much attention to it again) and she did get the favoured 'last position' to sing in, with Eoghan getting the dreaded 'first position'.

I thought that Alexandra had the best performances tonight. I've also enjoyed past performances from her such as 'Candyman'. Her rendition of Hallelujah I preferred more than JLS', but their performance of the song was also good as well.

Overall though I thought everyone performed well tonight and no doubt JLS & Eoghan will get a record deal soon as well.

Clearly Eoghan had been the main favourite across the series after topping the show for 6 of the weeks. I'd like to see a detailed breakdown of the results for each week as well just out of interest.

ITV have released a detailed breakdown of the voting across the series - http://xfactor.itv.com/stories/story-de ... 100567.htm

There are some very interesting patterns in there. The leaks were right about Eoghan winning the vote for the first half of the series but it seems Alexandra probably picked up a lot of the Laura/Ruth/Diana votes in the latter stage of the series.

It does seem as though there were two key groups of votes at play: Eoghan dominated the 'squeeing fangirl' bloc vote throughout (which is why Austin was never a contender despite my expectations) but the other was from casual viewers of many age groups who wanted to vote for who they thought was the best singer, and most of them equate 'best singer' with 'biggest belter'. Alex emerged in that department in the second half of the series and that allowed her to unify what was until then a very disparate and disloyal voting group, as shown by the volatility amongst the female singers. JLS were also more competitive in the later stages and probably split the Eoghan vote, which also cleared Alex's path to victory.

She won't last, people will see her as a second-rate Leona soon enough. Although I missed her performance of Silent Night and apparently she threw in (shock, horror!) an actual high note...

Incidentally that's also the first ever reality TV show in which ethnic minority groups were first and second - and Alex is only the third non-white reality TV show winner if memory serves (Leona was the first, Brian of BB 2007 the second). Note also that Laura was never a contender, and her elimination was actually an incredibly fortuitous one.

Just knocking up a graph of the votes as they changed. It's obvious that Diana actually got a massive sympathy vote after her week off, whereas I (given the tabloid leaks that week) expected a huge backlash that would lead to an unexpected elimination. Week 8 saw the big change - JLS clearly stealing a lot of Eoghan votes probably as his fortunes became entwined with Diana's, which were also fading. The final seems to have shown a very clean Diana-Alex transfer, and JLS needed a big swing in the Eoghan vote, but that was too late. Had it been possible to run this via the Instant Runoff Voting/Alternative Vote method, I would imagine a lot of Eoghan votes would have had JLS as second preference and that would have carried JLS much closer (58.3% to 41.7% is not close - just to put that into context, that's twice as big a winning margin in terms of votes as Barack Obama obtained over John McCain and they called that a comprehensive win). But that would have prevented a separate hour-long show in the final, so that would never do

Two graphs. First for individual contestants...



...then the second is perhaps the interesting one as I've categorised the acts into three groups: the 'Pretty Boys' who would be getting the 'fangirl' vote (Eoghan, JLS, Scott, Austin), the 'Belters' that would get those who know this is a talent contest but have a limited definition of 'talent' (Ruth, Alex, Laura, Diana) and the 'others' who drew their appeal from some other source (Girlband, Bad Lashes, Rachel, Daniel).



Note that after Diana's return, the belters held a sustained lead but that Ruth beat Alex (just) even the week before she was eliminated - she obviously underperformed that week, Alex got her votes and from then on was only threatened by JLS getting the Eoghan vote, which given the way the final is run was not that likely. If Eoghan had been eliminated in the semi-final, JLS would have run up a lead in the early stage of the final as their Pretty Boys bloc vote would have been secure while Alex's Belter bloc vote would have been split with Diana, who would have gone out in third but whose voters would not have been able to shift to Alex in time. (Unless the vote was reset after Eoghan's elimination in which case none of this matters.)

WIN!

First off i was happy to see Alexandra win, i wanted her to win ever since Ruth got knocked out but i wouldnt of been disappointed if one of the others won.

But this has probably been mentioned before but im too tired to read through everybodys posts. Alexandra is not going to do very well and theres one woman because of that and that is...Leona Lewis! If Simon Cowell gets a good song he is going to give it to Leona because shes a world star and Alexandra isnt. Leona will get him more money then Alexandra ever will. So i cant see her doing very well but i hope she does well!

Good series but it could have been soo much better if some of the stronger and diverse singers were in the final like Ruth/Diana/Austin/Laura some of them should have been in the final! But oh well!

Craig is right. Alex has one other route to success, and it is not through Cowell at all, it is through Beyoncé and her husband, who is a top producer. The UK probably doesn't have room for another Leona, but the US might - I project that Alex will be forgotten here, but be at least a minor star in the States (and that's about as lucrative as being very well-known here).

Well, that was a great standard in the final, certainly better than last year. But then again, I was never a fan of Leon and Same Difference (but Rhydian outsold Leon, so that turned out alright )

I fully expected Alexandra to win after her performances over the last month or so, but unlike last year, was rather hoping for an upset and for JLS to become the first group to win, as that would be something different. Instead what we now have is a similar winner to 2006 and Leona (and if we're honest, probably not as good).

Still, I think her performances saturday night were outstanding and she rightfully deserves the victory. The Beyonce appointment was likely to be a clincher for her as well, as she has huge international admiration that surely eclipses Boyzone and Westlife. And her voice was ideally suited to the duet.

Overall, a great final, and about the order I would've ranked them on night performances. I think Eoghan singing HalleJulah(sp) would've been an intriguing proposition given some quite high notes, pity we didn't get to see his version, but I think he went out at the right time. Alexandra was getting a ridiculous amount of extra hype compared to the others I felt, so it seemed inevitable she would win. The bookies got it right this year!

I'm glad Alex won!

Fastest dowload in history... so almost certainly Christmas No.1 now!

Yeah he did, and after this, Diana will be outselling Alex and the rest of this year's finalists...

I wouldn't kid yourself.

Here's some previously unseen auditions (unless you watched the Xtra Factor last week).

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=f6W2kiVBJEQ - Party shop worker Charlie sounds like he's inhaled his fair share of helium, but amazingly manages to lower his voice to sing!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NTYmhmdg0qE - 62-year-old Catherine wants to prove to the younger people that the older generation have got what it takes!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tnBKPWfrhzE - 14-year-old Sebastian just wants to sing and will do anything, including pleading, to get there...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=f-6sjlUPmBE - Here's a previously unseen audition, where Lee combines his two loves of singing and acting!

A sneak preview of some the people auditioning for this year's X Factor....already.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/xfactor/a15 ... tions.html

I know they record in advance, but it still seems to earlier too be talking about this years X Factor.

I also wonder how Simon Cowell fits in all this work, as he's currently filming American Idol Tue/Wed each week and these X Factor auditions took place today and continue tomorrow. Plus he's involved with Britain's Got Talent and was in America promoting America's Got Talent only a week or two ago.

I think Simon is one of Triplets