The X Factoring: Quantitative Analysis of Results and Predictions

Moving to the X Campus

2011-02-26T07:52:00.000-08:00

2/26/2011

After five episodes of the Dutch X Factor season 4, 103 candidates made it to the next round.

What is interesting to note is that almost half of the contestants fall into the 15-25 GIRLS category. Below you find the grouping of the upcomming X Campus. There are 41 candidates in the girls category, 30 in the 26 plus category, only 17 groups, and, just 15 boys between 15-25.

So far, viewer stats are stuck.

Each show has about 1.5 million viewers, leaving a market share of about 20-23 percent to RTL each Friday night. Compared to the previous Friday night music show - The Voice of Holland (#TVOH) - these stats are somewhat disappointing, but overall the show is POPULAR. Maybe the next round after the auditions, X Campus, can get attention of a new audience, making season 4 the most poular of all times?

Dutch X Factor 2011 is launched

2011-01-28T12:43:00.001-08:00

January 28, 2011

RTL4 launched the fourth new season of X Factor. Previous winnars of the show include Jaap Reesema, Lisa Lois and Sharon Kips. The tvshow will again be presented by Martijn Krabbé and Wendy van Dijk. The jury also consists again of Eric van Tijn, Stacy Rookhuizen, Angela Groothuizen and Gordon.

The auditions where held in the Heineken Music Hall and end on February 25, 2011. Lets wait and see what happens this year...

How did we do?

2009-12-31T08:16:00.000-08:00

And the winner is: JOE!

Congratulations, but how did our predictions then turned out? Lets start with the non-finalistes, or the losers.

we said: (a month before the final, see below)

"we predict that Joe & Edward, Loyd and Jamie are the most likely to hit the chair"

...and they did! Non of them got in the final. So that is a good start on our statistics side.

Next, the winners, the two guys, Joe and Olly both received the highest points in our predictions, making a correct educated guess on the final show. The winner Joe also got our biggest chance, so hooray again (although our dynamic estimates favoured Olly). Stacy nincely finished third, and Dynal went out last before the final.

Jury predictions (14 November 2009)

2009-11-14T20:12:00.000-08:00

Based on 84 observations of the judges we calculated the probabilities of each contestant staying in the show. Our results only reflex the jury's evaluation and (as we have shown before) these ratings have low predictive power. Nonetheless, here is the most recent list of the rankings by Dannii, Cheryl, Louis and Simon taken together, lets see if they are correct this time

Who will be on the chair this time?
Well, if we follow the judges we predict that John & Edward, Loydd and Jamie are the most likely to hit the chair, see graph below

Results so far, per group

2009-11-14T08:21:00.000-08:00

Ok, all this quant stuff might seem strange, but here a simple overview of the data up to November 8 2009 shows. We have (panel) data on who went out the show and to which judge he or she belongs.

Louis is responsible for "group", Cheryl for "men", Dannii for "ladies" and Simon for the "old". What we have seen in the shows so far is that the groups of Louis has seen the highest OUT, followed by Dannii's ladies. The boys ("men") of Cheryl are doing better than expected, as are the above 25 (old) by Simon.

Joe Archer and the Gummo Movie

2009-11-14T06:51:00.001-08:00

Last week the theme of the UK season 6 X Factor was movies. Joe Archer performed the song "Crying", based on the unknown movie Gummo. Look what happened afterwards to this title:

First of all, lets explore the number of searches on Google for Gummo over the past year. We see a massive search increase:

Likewise, the popularity of Gummo on IMDb (based on MOVIEmeter data) rose by more than 1000 percent. Clearly, The X Factor has a great impact.

Which judges agree most and less?

2009-11-13T16:34:00.000-08:00

In statistics we use so-called correlations to see if things have a simpel relationship. For instance, if we are interested in the judgement of a candidate by Simon, Cheryl, Dannii or Louis, we might wonder whom of these four agrees most with the other judges.

Interestingly, we find that the two ladies hold the closest opinions about the candidates. So, if Cheryl is very enthousiastic about a certain performance, Dannii is likely to agree with her, and vice versa. The two guys, Simon and Louis, are actually the ones who hold most dissimilar opinions about the candidates.

Using quantitative numbers, we have the following correlations based on 50 observations of season 6's live shows, where a correlation coefficient is always between 0 and 1, where 1 indicates that the judges hold the exact same evaluations and zero the exact opposite.

Dannii and Cheryl: 0.71
Dannii and Louis: 0.55
Cheryl and Louis: 0.52

Dannii and Simon: 0.44
Cheryl and Simon: 0.37
Louis and Simon: 0.25

Ranking judge toughness

2009-11-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

Based on 189 observations of season 6 of the UK X Factor live shows, we have established that Simon definitely is the toughest judge. Based on a 5 point scale, his average candidate judgement is a 3.5. The two lady judges are scoring in between. Cheryl's average rating is a 3.8 and Dannii's a 3.9. Louis is the most enthousiatic judge in the show, giving the average candidate a 4.1 out of 5.

1. Simon (3.5)
2. Cheryl (3.8)
3. Dannii (3.9)
4. Louis (4.1)

Welcome

2009-11-13T15:18:00.001-08:00

Today we launched our new blog about The X Factor. We supply some quantitative analyses of the television program in terms of who is likely to win, who will probably leave the next show, what judges are the most influential, and, what individual characteristics make you a X Factor winner? Furthermore, can the show format actually influence who will win and who will exit? Read our upcomming blogs!