X Factor 2009 Update! What to Expect this year

At last, it's here. Tonight at 7pm, the X Factor returns to ITV1 for its sixth season. The judges are the same - Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh - and they will be putting contestants through their paces between now and December, when the winner will receive a £1million recording contract, and be a racing certainty for the Christmas No 1 slot. But, in series six, what is there to draw us in? ALISON BOSHOFF presents an indispensable guide to all the things you didn't know about the X Factor.

Clash of the titans: This year will see Louis and Dannii gang up to take on rivals Cheryl and Simon

American timing

Because of Simon's commitments to filming American Idol and his transatlantic lifestyle, the X Factor exists in a time zone of its own. Filming starts at noon and wraps around midnight - at least until the live shows start - because he finds it less tiring that way.

The catering

The official meal break on set is at 5.30pm. The judges have their own spread laid out - with everything from sushi and fresh vegetables to sandwiches and pasta.

It has also been known for a KFC bucket to be presented - and apparently it's the first thing eaten. Simon and Cheryl also like to snack between times on chocolate bars. No treats for Dannii, though - she eats no meat, wheat or dairy.

The teeth

Louis has joined the brilliant white brigade this year and had his teeth whitened - by Simon Cowell's dentist, no less. He and Dannii don't have veneers; Simon and Cheryl do.

The fashion

Both Cheryl and Dannii enjoy the services of a stylist - paid for by programme makers Talkback - when the show goes live.

Before then, they pay out of their own pockets for any advice they receive. Cheryl relies on the eye of Victoria Adcock, who styled her for Girls Aloud. She puts her in ultra-feminine dresses.

Dannii uses her assistant, Tori King, and aims for edgier looks, often using Aussie designers Ralph & Russo and J'Aton.

She says: 'Sometimes I use stylists, sometimes I work with designers. If you liked what I wore, it was all me - if you didn't, it wasn't my idea.'

Hopefuls: Girl group High Voltage were also-rans last year

Hair and make-up

Simon Cowell is looked after by Julia Carter - she's the only woman he trusts with a powder puff. Julia attends to him between auditions, and all the judges get frequent touch-ups from their own make-up artists while on the judging podium.

She is not, though, allowed to touch Cowell's hair - he insists on blow-drying it himself at the studios. Which probably explains a lot.

Cheryl and Dannii used to share a hair and make-up artist, but that arrangement no longer holds due to the rivalry between the girls.

Lisa Laudat, who looked after Cheryl on the most recent Girls Aloud tour, does her hair and make-up for all the shows.

She is thought to be paid around £40,000. Their routines and requirements are very different: Dannii likes Tan Towels and no bronzer, Cheryl favours false eyelashes.

The rivalries

A straight two-and-two split now prevails - Simon and Cheryl are close, as are Louis and Dannii. Simon and Cheryl go on cigarette breaks together and whisper to each other constantly when the cameras are off.

The Girls Aloud singer is happy to defer to his opinion and seems swept away by his charisma. This leaves Louis and Dannii out in the cold, both struggling to hang on to their jobs.

Dannii came close to quitting last series because Simon was so dismissive of her, and because of her poisonous arguments with Louis.

But the story this year seems to be that Dannii and Louis have made up and are now best friends. Dannii says: 'We've cleared the deck. Louis was very sweet on the first day of work this year.

'He said: "I'm so sorry - please don't let me do that again." It's nice now to see the side of him everyone else knows.'

Glutton for punishment: Emma Chawner is also back for more

Meanwhile, Cheryl and Dannii have very little to do with each other. Although they say they get on fine, each believes the other may be spinning stories about a rivalry to the papers.

There also seems to be jealousy on Dannii's part about the attention paid to her younger rival - she's 37, Cheryl is 26.

Dannii, who says she isn't having Botox this year, is clearly pulling out all the stops to outshine Cheryl - she has had a radical haircut and ditched her more traditional style for something edgier.

Cheryl, aside from the plum rinse, is dressing in exactly the same way: very pretty, girlie and lots of bling.

What's not widely known is that the two of them share the same model agent, Jess Roberts.

Apparently, Dannii rang Jess to find out what to buy for Cheryl when invited to her birthday party earlier this year - and bought her a Dior ring.

Simon's Palace

No one need doubt who is the king of the show. Cowell has installed a £50,000 'chill out' room at the X Factor studios.

He has commandeered the top floor of Fountain Studios, in Wembley, and asked for a relaxation area plus plasma TVs and a sound system - the other judges make do with a dressing room suite each.

Simon also requires lots of mirrors. Louis says: 'He has mirrors everywhere, and he looks at himself, and he's making eyes at himself, and he's frowning at himself.'

Judges' houses

Tidy profit: Leona Lewis has already made £6m from Bleeding Love

Last year, Cowell took his group to his place in Barbados and Louis took his group back to his native Ireland.

This year, the programme makers have decreed that Ireland is simply too soggy and not quite showbiz enough, so the definition of a home is being stretched.

Louis will be packing his bags for a rented villa in Tuscany, Dannii is off to Dubai and Cheryl to Morocco.

Only Simon's crowd will go to a bona fide home - his new place in Los Angeles.

The new format

Simon is determined to make sure X Factor is a huge success again - he is terrified of audiences tiring of the formula.

To freshen things up, the auditions are now filmed in front of a live audience, as is boot camp. But the biggest change will be when the series reaches the live stage for the final 16 acts.

The Saturday night show will be followed by a new live results show on Sunday. This will net millions of pounds in extra revenue for ITV because it gives viewers longer to ring in and vote.

Boomerang contestants

Girl band High Voltage - Libby Smith, Kathleen Cooney, Ashley Jenkins and Bianca Redpath - were also-rans last year and surface again this year under the name Accent.

Word is that they make it at least as far as boot camp. Another familiar face is Daniel Pearce, from Popstars: The Rivals of 2002, singing with the band One True Voice.

OTV were launched in competition to Girls Aloud, but the band split after a year when Pearce left to pursue a solo career. Insiders say he got through auditions and boot camp, and is now in the mentoring stage of the contest.

At the initial auditions, now held in front of a live audience, he won four 'yes' votes from the judges for his rendition of Seal's 1994 hit Kiss From A Rose.

Cheryl gave him a standing ovation, saying: 'I always thought you were fantastic.'

The oddities

After her last audition ended in rejection and an expose about her jobless 83st family claiming £22,500 a year in benefits, 18st Emma Chawner is back, having formed a group with her 21st sister Samantha.

Miss Chawner was firmly rejected by Simon Cowell in 2007, who said: 'People who've won a rosette at a donkey derby don't go on to win the Grand National. You cannot sing.'

The sisters from Ramsbottom, Lancs, feature in tonight's show as Sister Act, singing Whole Again by Atomic Kitten.

Also watch out for David G from London, who performs in a chicken outfit and Karen, who comes dressed as a reindeer and sings Christmas songs.

The sob stories

Dannii was moved to tears by auditionee Scott James. Scott, 21, suffers from Asperger's.

The judges, though, are starting to tire of applauding acts who come on stage with a story. Louis says: 'There are sob stories every day of the auditions. For some reason, the public seem to like them.

'I don't always buy into them - it's a talent show. If they're coming to sing for their dead nan, or they've only got one lung, that's fine. But I'm judging them on their voice.

'I don't want to see anybody crying. It doesn't really work for me. No one's going to buy your record for that reason.'

The British Pussycat Dolls? Former lap-dancers Kandy Rain met while working at the Secrets strip clubs in London's Euston and Hammersmith

The strippers

Kandy Rain, who make their mark with a very professional audition and are said to get through to boot camp stage, met while working at the Secrets strip clubs in Euston and Hammersmith.

The story is that Azi Jegbefume, 25, Khatereh Dovani, 24, Chemmane Applewhaite, 27, and Coco Lloyd, 22, saved up their tips to pay for costumes and singing lessons.

A spokesman for the show says: 'The girls no longer work as lapdancers.'

Backroom boys and girls

What a lot there are - three executive producers, eight producer directors, three associate producers, a line producer, a series producer and pretty much every cameraman in the country. Because it's such a long show, and so complex in terms of locations, it is very labour intensive - and expensive - to make.

The money

The winner of the '£1 million contract' actually only gets a £150,000 advance and is then promised a modest percentage of earnings from future record sales and tours.

The £1million figure refers to the amount Syco, Cowell's record company, and parent company Sony BMG will spend on the artist including writers and producers, marketing and advertising.

The 2006 winner Leona Lewis has already made £6million with Bleeding Love, the best-selling single of the 21st century.

But previous winners Steve Brookstein and Leon Jackson, managed only a hit single and album, then faded away, and can count themselves lucky to have come away with £250,000 in total.

Jonathan Shalit, the impresario who launched Charlotte Church, said complaints over a lack of creative freedom were misplaced. 'Look, this is a karaoke show. Everyone knows the rules by now.'

Celebrity mentors

Whitney Houston, Rihanna and Shakira will be coaching hopefuls and performing as the show comes to a close. It is also possible that Robbie Williams will perform - and as is customary, Madonna has been asked, but she's yet to agree.

Did you know...

Stylists get through up to 30 cans of hairspray each day of filming. Bookies are offering odds of 8/1 that Cheryl will slap Simon.

Simon was wooing Michael Jackson to perform and be a celebrity mentor, before his death in June.

Presenter Holly Willoughby's baby Harry is backstage throughout the filming, looked after by his gran.

Commissioning executive John Kaye Cooper started out by devising Russ Abbott's Madhouse.

The show now has a Twitter page twitter.com/thexfactor, as well as a website.

How it unfolds

There will be six weeks of auditions, followed by boot camp. Then comes the judges' houses section and the live shows.

ITV won't confirm a date for the start of the live stages, but it looks likely to be Saturday, October 23. At that point the new Sunday night live shows will start.

ITV's Xtra Factor, hosted by Holly Willoughby, will run every Saturday after the X Factor, and every Sunday until the second week of December when the winner is crowned.

Fade away: Previous winners Leon Jackson (l) and Steve Brookstein managed only one hit single and album before being dropped

X FACTOR BY NUMBERS

1is the length of the waiting list for tickets to be in the audience for the X Factor's live shows.

1 and 2 the genuine names of a pair of identical twins from Scotland who entered this year's X Factor. And Leona Lewis's parents, Aural and Marie, were both called Lewis, before they married.

2 Baftas have been awarded to the X Factor. The show has also won four National Television Awards.

3 new tracks by 2006 winner Leona Lewis, including a possible single called Don't Let Me Down, have been stolen and leaked onto the internet by hackers who broke into the computer system of Simon Cowell's Syco record label.

4 X Factor winners in a row have had the Christmas No1 single, making this coveted honour so predictable that bookies now take bets on who will be No2.

5 judges have competed to produce the winning entry on X Factor: Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Sharon Osbourne, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole. Of these, only Sharon Osbourne failed to come up with a series winner.

6 guest judges have also made brief appearances in various series: Paula Abdul, Brian Friedman, Kimberley Walsh, Emma Bunton, Shane Filan and Simon Cowell's old flame Sinitta. And 2005 winner Shayne Ward almost became the 6th member of Take That when Jason Orange threatened to quit in 2006: Orange, however, (very sensibly) changed his mind.

8 songs were picked by Simon Cowell for Desert Island Discs, in an episode broadcast at the start of X Factor Series Three in August 2006. They were Mack The Knife, This Guy's In Love With You, She, Unchained Melody, Danke Schoen, If You're Not The One, Summer Wind and Mr Bojangles.

8 of the 17 shows originally planned for 2007 winner Leon Jackson's UK tour this May had to be cancelled because of poor sales. Jackson has also been dropped by Sony Records, as was 2004 winner Steve Brookstein before him.

9 platinum awards have been given to 2006 winner Leona Lewis's debut album Spirit in the UK alone, representing sales close to 3million.

10 singles released by X Factor contestants have reached No1 in the UK charts, the most recent of which was Beat Again, by JLS, the runners-up in last year's series, which has so far sold around 250,000 copies.

16 is the new minimum age for X Factor entrants, after two years in which it was lowered to 14.

19 of the Christmas 2008 Top 20 singles, added together, sold fewer copies than X Factor winner Alexandra Burke's version of the Leonard Cohen classic Hallelujah.

94 episodes of X Factor have been broadcast, before tonight's show.

113 days between tonight's opening show and the likely (but as-yet-unconfirmed) date of the X Factor final: Sunday, December 13.

10,000 wannabe stars turned out for the first round of auditions at Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium on April 18 this year.

50,000 people downloaded Leona Lewis's debut single A Moment Like This in the first 30 minutes of its release.

£100,000 is said to have been cut from Dermot O'Leary's pay for presenting X Factor by cash-strapped ITV. He will now earn a mere £900,000 for the series.

182,000 people auditioned for the 2008 series of the X Factor and more than 200,000 are believed to have applied this year in five cities over 13 days.

500,000-plus copies of Rhydian, the debut album by 2007 runner-up Rhydian Roberts, have been sold in the UK alone, making him the 4th most successful X Factor graduate, after Leona Lewis, G4 and Shayne Ward.

1m copies of Alexandra Burke's Hallelujah single were sold in December 2008 and January 2009, making her the first British female solo artist to sell a million copies of a single in the UK.

£21.7m Simon Cowell's tax bill last year, suggesting an income of at least £54m. His current ITV deal, which ends this year, has been worth £20m over the past three years, dwarfed by his staggering £60m-a-year deal on American Idol.

6m voted for Steve Brookstein in the first X Factor final in 2004, the highest vote for any winner.

13.5m watched Alexandra Burke win last year's final.

100m is the TV audience Simon Cowell hopes for with the projected Euro X Factor, featuring winners of all the individual European shows.

Daily Mail 2009