If The X Factor is about mystery and intrigue, tonight’s reveal of the Top 16 certainly had that and more… except it was for all the wrong reasons.
Because of a rain delay in the Major League Baseball playoffs, the airing of the episode was initially delayed on FOX, adding chaos to an already stacked Wednesday night TV schedule. When the game resumed, the show was suddenly cut off just as Demi Lovato was making her final selections.
In Canada, CTV chose to wait until 9 p.m. to start the episode and showed all of Demi Lovato’s selections (including the shocking elimination of Jillian Jensen). It then aired Simon Cowell choosing to advance Lyric 145, cutting Dope Crisis and advancing Emblem 3. Mysteriously after the next commercial break, instead of seeing the rest of Simon’s team reveal the show went back to auditions that had aired, fuelling speculation that FOX didn’t want the results revealed ahead of time.
Simon Cowell tweeted that even he wasn’t sure what was happening:
@SimonCowell: Have no idea what is happening to the schedule tonight. Have heard the whole episode will be shown next Tuesday. Sorry. It what’s known as a total f up.
FOX released a statement at 11 p.m. EST where they said:
NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES RAIN DELAY
PUSHES CONCLUSION OF “THE X FACTOR” ‘JUDGES HOMES’ ROUND
TO TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23
Due to tonight’s rain delay of Game #3 of the National League Championship Series, the highly anticipated conclusion of the “Judges’ Homes” round of THE X FACTOR will air in its entirety on Tuesday, Oct. 23 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. The competition kicks into high gear on Tuesday, when the judges reveal which four acts in each of the four categories – Teens, Young Adults, Groups and Over 25s – continue and which two acts are eliminated.
Tonight on the West Coast (8:00-10:00 PM PT), an encore broadcast of last Wednesday night’s THE X FACTOR will air. The remainder of THE X FACTOR schedule remains intact, with the first live episodes airing Thursday, Nov. 1 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) and Sunday, Nov. 4 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live-PT tape-delayed).
