X Factor (French TV series)

X Factor is a Franco-Belgian television music talent show to find new singing talent after public auditions, intermediate tests, and live shows. The first season was broadcast on Mondays, from September to December 2009, on W9 (France) and RTL-TVI (Belgium).

For versions in other countries, see The X Factor.

X Factor
Created by	Simon Cowell
Presented by	Alexandre Devoise (2006-9) Sandrine Corman (2011) Jérôme Anthony (2011-)
Judges	Marc Cerrone (2009) Alain Lanty (2009) Julie Zenatti (2009) Véronic Dicaire (2011) Olivier Schultheis (2011) Christophe Willem (2011) Henry Padovani (2011)
Country of origin	France Belgium
Original language(s)	French
No. of seasons	2
Production
Producer(s)	FremantleMedia Syco
Production location(s)	Various (auditions) Palais des Sports (Paris) Studios du Lendit - L1
Running time	115mins (inc. adverts)
Release
Original network	W9 (2009) M6 (2011) RTL-TVI
Picture format	16:9
Original release	September 28, 2009 – June 28, 2011
External links
Website

The second and final season was broadcast on Tuesdays, from March to June 2011, on M6 and RTL-TVI.

Series summary

     Act in "Alain Lanty"
     Act in "Julie Zenatti"
     Act in "Marc Cerrone"
     Act in "Henri Padovani"
     Act in "Oliver Schultheis"
     Act in "Christophe Willem"
     Act in "Véronic DiCaire"

Season	Air date	Winner	Runner-up	Third place	Host(s)	Judges	Winning mentor
One	2009	Sébastien Agius	Marie	Basilic	Alexandre Devoise	Julie Zenatti Marc Cerrone Alain Lanty	Alain Lanty
Two	2011	Matthew Raymond-Barker	Marina d'Amico	Maryvette Lair	Sandrine Corman Jérôme Anthony	Christophe Willem Olivier Schultheis Véronic Dicaire Henry Padovani	Véronic Dicaire

(1) Zaho with Christophe Willem in London (Judges' house), Sharleen Spiteri with Henry Padovani in French Perigord (Judges' house), Roch Voisine with Véronic DiCaire in Quebec (Judges' house), Alain Chamfort with Olivier Schultheis in Morocco (Judges' house)

Judges' categories and their finalists

In each season, each judge is allocated a category to mentor and chooses three acts to progress to the live shows. This table shows, for each season, which category each judge was allocated and which acts he or she put through to the live shows.

Key:

     – Winning judge/category. Winners are in bold, eliminated contestants in small font.

Season	Alain Lanty	Marc Cerrone	Julie Zenatti	N/A
One	Over 25's Sébastien Annie Cécile	Groups Basilic Character Soul Gauthier Dymon & Flo	16-24's Marie Cyrielle Guillaume
Season	Christophe Willem	Véronic Dicaire	Olivier Schultheis	Henry Padovani
Two	Over 25's Maryvette Lair Vincent Léoty Cécile Couderc	Boys Matthew Raymond-Barker Florian Giustiniani Raphaël Herrerias	Girls Marina D'Amico Sarah Manesse Bérénice Schleret	Groups 2nde Nature Oméga Twem

Season 1 (2009)

The first season of the show aired from September to December 2009 and the winner was 26-year-old Sébastien Agius from the "Over 25" category. The judges were Alain Lanty, Julie Zenatti and Marc Cerrone.

Finalists

The final 9 acts were confirmed as follows:

Key:

     – Winner

     – Runner up

     – Third Place

Category (Mentor)	Acts
Over 25 (Lanty)	Annie	Cécile	Sébastien
Groups (Cerrone)	Basilic	Character Soul	Gauthier Dymon & Flo
16-24s (Zenatti)	Cyrielle	Guillaume	Marie

Results summary

Color key:

–	Contestant in the category 16-24
–	Contestant in the category over 25
–	Contestant in the category groups
–	Contestant was in the bottom two and had to sing again in the final showdown
–	Contestant received the fewest public votes and was immediately eliminated (no final showdown)

		Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8
								SEMIFINAL	FINAL
	Sébastien	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Winner
	Marie	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Safe	Runner up
	Basilic	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Safe	3rd	Eliminated (Week 7)
	Cyrielle	Bottom two	Safe	Bottom two	Bottom two	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 6)
	Guillaume	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 5)
	Annie	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 4)
	Character Soul	Safe	Bottom two	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 3)
	Gauthier Dymon & Flo	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 2)
	Cécile	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 1)
Bottom two		Cyrielle, Cécile	Character Soul, Gauthier Dymon & Flo	Cyrielle, Character Soul	Cyrielle, Annie	Basilic, Guillaume	Marie, Cyrielle	No judges' vote or final showdown: public votes alone decide who is eliminated and who ultimately wins
	Zenatti's vote to eliminate	Cécile	Gauthier Dymon & Flo	Character Soul	Annie	Basilic	Cyrielle
	Cerrone's vote to eliminate	Cécile	Gauthier Dymon & Flo	Cyrielle	Annie	Guillaume	Marie
	Lanty' vote to eliminate	Cyrielle	Character Soul	Character Soul	Cyrielle	Guillaume	Cyrielle
Eliminated		Cécile 2 of 3 votes	Gauthier Dymon & Flo 2 of 3 votes	Character Soul 2 of 3 votes	Annie 2 of 3 votes	Guillaume 2 of 3 votes	Cyrielle 2 of 3 votes	Basilic	Marie 48% to win
									Sébastien 52% to win

Ratings

Show	Date	Viewers	Share	Source
Auditions 1	28 September 20:35-22:30	589,000	2.3 %	[1]
Auditions 2	5 October 20:35-22:30	800,000	2.9%	[2]
Auditions 3	12 October 20:35-22:30	691,000	2.6%	[3]
Boot Camp	19 October 20:35-22:30	812,000	3.3%	[4]
Judge's Houses 1	26 October 20:35-22:30	640,000	2.5%	[5]
Judge's Houses 2	2 November 20:35-22:30	619,000	2.3%	[6]
Live Show / Results 1	9 November 20:35-22:30	863,000	3.5%	[7]
Live Show / Results 2	16 November 20:35-22:30	726,000	3.0%	[8]
Live Show / Results 3	23 November 20:35-22:30	670,000	2.6%	[9]
Live Show / Results 4	30 November 20:35-22:30	928,000	3.7 %	[10]
Live Show / Results 5	7 December 20:35-22:30	715,000	3.4%	[11]
Live Show / Results 6	14 December 20:35-22:30	800,000	3.3%	[12]
Semifinal / Results 7	21 December 20:35-22:30	613,000	2.3%	[13]
Final / Results 8	28 December 20:35-22:30	900,000	3.6%	[14]

Season 2 (2011)

Based on a generally good public reception, and after some speculations, X Factor came back for a second season in March 2011 on M6 (mother TV channel of W9), in place of Nouvelle Star, the French Pop Idol, programmed on M6 since 7 years after audience figures deteriorated for Star[15]

Frédéric de Vincelles, general manager of W9, declared that even though all targeted goals were not attained in season 1, the program had still realised some respectable audience figures for the chain, making it the biggest grossing program for the network in 2009.

Differences with first season

• First season was aired on a small TV channel with limited means. This is not the case with the second season, as the program tries to emulate the successful British edition.
• For this second season, M6 assigned 4 artists to be part of the jury: Christophe Willem, Véronic Dicaire, Olivier Schultheis and Henry Padovani. All judges are new and replace the old set of three judges Marc Cerrone, Alain Lanty and Julie Zenatti.
• Auditions were held in major French theatres, in public.
• The bootcamp lasted for days and included 3 events: vocal duels, choreography and solos on orchestra-band.
• Two to three French or international popstars are invited each week during liveshows .
• During shows, a second program, named "F@n Factor: Le Prime", is broadcast on the internet to show the backstage and see preparation of candidates and their reactions after singing. So, there isn't an after-show as Xtra Factor.
• Every day, a short program, named "F@n Factor: Le Mag", is broadcast on the internet to show repetitions of candidates with their coaches, and their daily activities.

Judges and hosts

For this second season, judges of the first season are not renewed. Also, for the first time, there are four judges (so four categories in competition) :

• Christophe Willem (27 years old) – French singer and songwriter. He sang in a gospel choir and won the fourth edition of Nouvelle Star (French version of Pop Idol) in 2006. He sold over 2 million albums and was nominated several times in NRJ Music Awards and Victoires de la Musique.
• Olivier Schultheis (45 years old) – French conductor, musician and songwriter. He discovered Christophe Maé and composed for Hélène Ségara, Thierry Amiel, Christophe Willem and for musicals (Le Roi Soleil, Mozart l'opéra rock...) and wrote soundtracks for films. He was also a producer of Nouvelle Star (French version of Pop Idol).
• Véronic DiCaire (34 years old) - Franco-Ontarian singer and imitator. She was discovered by Céline Dion and René Angélil and was renowned for her imitations of many voices including Céline Dion, Tina Turner, Lynda Lemay, Lara Fabian, Isabelle Boulay, Christina Aguilera, Cyndi Lauper, Vanessa Paradis and others. She released two albums (with her real performing voice) in 2002 and 2005.
• Henry Padovani (58 years old) – Corsican songwriter, guitarist and manager. He is the founding member of The Police with Stewart Copeland but Sting fired him in favour of Andy Summers. He was the director of IRS Records, where he promoted many groups such as R.E.M., The Fleshtones, The Cramps, and The Bangles. He was also the manager of Zucchero and I Muvrini.

To present the show, M6 selected Sandrine Corman for the liveshows and early stages and Jérôme Anthony for F@n Factor and early stages.

Chronology of the early stages

• Preselections:
  • 2 November 2010 in Nice, Lyon and Strasbourg
  • 4 November 2010 in Marseille, Lille and Clermont-Ferrand
  • 6 November 2010 in Montpellier, Rennes and Brussels (Belgium)
  • 8 November 2010 in Toulouse
  • 9–10 November 2010 in Paris
• Auditions:

Audition city	Dates	Venue
Lille	2–3 December 2010	Lille Grand Palais (1,500 seats)
Lyon	9 December 2010	Cité-Centre de Congrès de Lyon (3,000 seats)
Montpellier	13–14 December 2010	Zénith Sud (3,200 seats)
Paris	3-4-5–6 January 2011	Studio 204 - Plaine Saint-Denis (600 seats)

• 'Bootcamp' : 25-26-27–28 January 2011 in Palais des Sports (Paris).
• 'Judge's House' : February in London, Marrakech, Canada and (south of) France.

Top 25

Top 24 acts were chosen with six in each of the four category. The judges added a 25th semi-finalist in the Groups category making the finalists for the Groups seven instead of six. The newly created group was named "Seconde Nature" and included 5 candidates who had applied for the "Boys" category but had failed to qualify individually to the Final 24, but were deemed talented enough to be given a second chance by performing as part of a band in the Groups category.

The 13 eliminated acts were:

• Boys: Sofiane Boncoeur, Slimane Nebchi, Michael Picquerey
• Girls: Ana Dupont, Charlène Gervais, Audrey Passani
• Over 25s: Lilou Bourial, Christophe Gilard, Barry Johnson
• Groups: Arcanes, New Style Project, Presteej, Swalk

Finalists

Key:

     – Winner

     – Runner-Up

     – Third Place

Category (Mentor)	Acts
Over 25s (Willem)	Cécile Couderc	Maryvette Lair	Vincent Léoty
Groups (Padovani)	Oméga	2nde Nature	Twem
Girls (Schultheis)	Marina D'Amico	Sarah Manesse	Bérénice Schleret
Boys (DiCaire)	Florian Giustiniani	Raphaël Herrerias	Matthew Raymond-Barker

Results summary

Colour key:

–	Contestant in the category boys
–	Contestant in the category girls
–	Contestant in the category over 25
–	Contestant in the category groups
–	Contestant was in the bottom two and had to sing again in the final showdown
–	Contestant received the fewest public votes and was immediately eliminated (no final showdown)

		Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8	Week 9	Week 10	Week 11
	Matthew Raymond-Barker	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Safe	Safe	Winner
	Marina D'Amico	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Runner-Up
	Maryvette Lair	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	3rd	Eliminated
	Sarah Manesse	Safe	10th	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Safe	Bottom two	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 9)
	Florian Guiustiniani	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 8)
	Raphaël Herrerias	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 7)
	2nde Nature	Safe	Safe	Safe	8th	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 6)
	Oméga	11th	Safe	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 5)
	Vincent Léoty	Safe	Safe	Safe	9th	Eliminated (Week 4)
	Bérénice Schléret	Safe	Safe	Bottom two	Eliminated (Week 3)
	Cécile Couderc	Safe	11th	Eliminated (Week 2)
	Twem	12th	Eliminated (Week 1)
Final showdown		Oméga, Twem	Cécile Couderc, Sarah Manesse	Bérénice Schléret, Maryvette Lair	2nde Nature, Vincent Léoty	Oméga, Sarah Manesse	2nde Nature, Raphaël Herrerias	Raphaël Herrerias, Sarah Manesse	Florian Guiustiniani, Matthew Raymond-Barker	Maryvette Lair, Sarah Manesse	No judges' vote or final showdown: public votes alone decide who is eliminated and who ultimately wins
	Padovani's vote to save	Oméga	Cécile Couderc	Maryvette Lair	2nde Nature	Oméga	2nde Nature	Sarah Manesse	Matthew Raymond-Barker	Maryvette Lair
	DiCaire's vote to save	Twem	Sarah Manesse	Maryvette Lair	2nde Nature	Sarah Manesse	Raphaël Herrerias	Raphaël Herrerias	N/A	Maryvette Lair
	Willem's vote to save	Twem	Cécile Couderc	Maryvette Lair	Vincent Léoty	Sarah Manesse	Raphaël Herrerias	Sarah Manesse	Matthew Raymond-Barker	Maryvette Lair
	Schultheis's vote to save	Oméga	Sarah Manesse	Bérénice Schléret	Vincent Léoty	Sarah Manesse	Raphaël Herrerias	Sarah Manesse	Matthew Raymond-Barker	Sarah Manesse
Eliminated		Twem 2 of 4 votes Deadlock	Cécile Couderec 2 of 4 votes Deadlock	Bérénice Schléret 1 of 4 votes Minority	Vincent Léoty 2 of 4 votes Deadlock	Oméga 1 of 4 votes Minority	2nde Nature 1 of 4 votes Minority	Raphaël Herrerias 1 of 4 votes Minority	Florian Guiustiniani 0 of 3 votes Minority	Sarah Manesse 1 of 4 votes Minority	Maryvette Lair Third Place	Marina D'Amico 49% to win
												Matthew Raymond-Barker 51% to win

Ratings

Show	Date	Viewers	Share	Source
Auditions 1	15 March 20:45-22:45	3.3 million	13.3%	[16]
Auditions 2	22 March 20:45-22:45	2.9 million	11.7%	[16]
Auditions 3	29 March 20:45-22:45	3.3 million	13.2%	[16]
Bootcamp	5 April 20:45-23:45	2.93 million	13.9%	[16]
Judge's House	12 April 20:45-23:45	3.2 million	15.6%	[16]
Liveshow 1 / Results 1	19 April 20:45-23:45	2.56 million	12.4%	[16]
Liveshow 2 / Results 2	26 April 20:45-23:45	2.11 million	9.9%	[16]
Liveshow 3 / Results 3	3 May 20:45-23:15	2.72 million	11.8%	[16]
Liveshow 4 / Results 4	10 May 20:45-23:15	2.19 million	10.1%	[17]
Liveshow 5 / Results 5	17 May 20:45-23:15	2.32 million	10.1%	[16]
Liveshow 6 / Results 6	24 May 20:45-23:45	2.2 million	10.2%	[16]
Liveshow 7 / Results 7	31 May 20:45-23:45	2.28 million	10.4%	[16]
Liveshow 8 / Results 8	7 June 20:45-23:30	2.2 million	10%	[16]
Liveshow 9 / Results 9	14 June 20:45-23:30	2.62 million	11.4%	[16]
Semifinal / Results 10	21 June 20:45-23:15	1.95 million	8.4%	[16]
Final / Results 11	28 June 20:45-23:15	2.4 million	10.8%	[16]

References

1. Audiences : Débuts très décevants pour X Factor sur W9
2. Audience X Factor sur W9 Archived October 25, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
3. Audiences prime : TF1 en tête / Beau score pour France 2
4. Audiences : X Factor remonte
5. X Factor déchante face à la concurrence
6. Joséphine reste l'ange gardien de TF1 en prime-time
7. TF1 en tête en prime, mais flop pour France 3
8. Audience prime: TF1 leader/Bon score pour France 2
9. TF1 leader en prime / Mireille Dumas sous la barre des 10%
10. X Factor en live : Regardez l'hommage à Michael Jackson, le jury de mauvaise humeur, le départ d'Annie et... Record d'audience ! (réactualisé)
11. Audiences prime: TF1 leader/Beau score pour France 2
12. Audiences prime: France 2 en tête/Flop pour M6
13. TF1 battue par France 2 en prime-time hier soir
14. Audiences en prime-time: TF1 en tête / Flop pour M6
15. Nouvelle Star laisse bien sa place à X Factor sur M6 !

External links

• X Factor website (series 1) (in French)
• X Factor website (series 2) (in French)