The X Factor

For the current season, see The X Factor 3

The X Factor is an American reality television music competition created by piperjr. Based on the original UK show, the show originally used the biggest talent in the business to compete however, after season 1, the series found new singing talent (solo artists and groups ages 12 and over), drawn from public auditions, and they competed against each other for votes. The winner was determined by the show's viewers via telephone, the Internet, and SMS text voting, and was awarded a recording contract with Piperjr Records record label, worth $5 million.

The show began airing on September 2014, and aired annually from September through January. The series employed a panel of judges who critiqued the contestants' performances. Each contestant was assigned to one of four categories (however, season one had five). The group acts were one category and the others were based on age or gender. Each judge was assigned to one of the categories, and acted as mentor to the contestants in his or her category, helping to decide song choices, styling, and staging, while also judging contestants from the other categories after each of the live performances. They competed with each other to try to get one of the contestants in their category to win the competition, thus making them the winning judge.

The original judging panel consisted of Colbie Caillat, Jeff Timmons, Julianne Hough, Ricky Martin, and Ludacris, with Eileen Davidson as host. Kandi Burruss and Benji Madden joined the panel in the second season, replacing Caillat, Ludacris, and Timmons, while LL Cool J joined Davidson as host.

Series overview
To date, two series have been broadcast, as summarized below.

Contestant in (or mentor of) "Boys" category

Contestant in (or mentor of) "Girls" category

Contestant in (or mentor of) "Teens" category Contestant in (or mentor of) "Young Adults" or category

Contestant in (or mentor of) "Over 25s" or "Over 40s" category

Contestant in (or mentor of) "Groups" category