English Entertainment
Nick Grimshaw, Rita Ora join ‘The X Factor’, Fernandez-Versini & Cowell return
MUMBAI: ITV, Syco and Thames announced that Nick Grimshaw and Rita Ora have signed as judges for the new series of The X Factor, as well as confirming that Cheryl Fernandez-Versini will return to the judging panel alongside show creator Simon Cowell.
Popstar Rita Ora is no stranger to The X Factor having first appeared on the show in 2012 as a guest judge. Ora burst on to the music scene in 2012, scoring a No.1 single with her collaboration with DJ Fresh on ‘Hot Right Now’. She went on to have a No. 1 debut album which produced two further No.1 singles. The first single from her second album, ‘I Will Never Let You Down’, became her fourth UK number one when it debuted at the top of the charts.
Speaking about joining the show, Ora said, “I am excited to be coming back to The X Factor – I had a ball here in 2012. This is a journey I can’t wait to embark on to find some talented singers. It’s the new generation taking over. Booooom.”
As the host of BBC Radio 1’s Breakfast show since 2012, Grimshaw is one of the most respected Radio DJs in the business. A massive champion of music, he will bring a new and fresh perspective to the panel in the search for the next big singing sensation.
A well-known fan of The X Factor, Grimshaw said, “I love X Factor and have watched the series religiously since it started, so obviously I’m hugely excited to be joining the show. Music is my job and my passion and I’m really looking forward to seeing what talent we can find and nurture this year. I can’t wait for Judges Houses in Oldham!”
Fernandez-Versini returns to the panel for her fifth series, after last year taking Lauren Platt all the way to the semi-finals. She was previously a judge on The X Factor from series five to series seven, securing victory in 2008 with Alexandra Burke and 2009 with Joe McElderry.
Fernandez-Versini said, “I haven’t been as excited about an X Factor season since I first became a judge. The addition of Rita and Grimmy along with some interesting changes we’ve made to the format has refocused us to do what we do best, finding talent and making stars. I cannot wait to get started!”
Cowell, who last year mentored the winning act, Ben Haenow, as well as the runner up Fleur East, said, “It’s taken a while! But I am very happy to be able to confirm our line-up of judges for The X Factor this year. The combination of Nick, Cheryl and Rita is going to be a lot of fun! They all bring a lot of enthusiasm and passion for music to the show. I have a feeling I am in for a bit of a rough time but sometimes you have to embrace the craziness and now, with luck, we hope to find a star.”
ITV director of entertainment and comedy Elaine Bedell added, “We’re delighted that Cheryl is returning to the show with Simon and we welcome Rita and Nick on board. Nick will bring his unique perspective and extensive musical knowledge to this year’s X Factor panel, while in Cheryl and Rita we have two of the UK’s most successful female recording artists.”
FremantleMedia UK acting CEO Richard Holloway said, “Rita and Nick are brilliant additions to the panel. Nick began his career in the music business and is hugely passionate about finding and breaking new talent, while Rita knows what it takes to be a successful artist. Alongside the welcome return of Cheryl and Simon, we have a formidable judging panel for what is shaping up to be quite the series.”
The new panel is part of a number of changes to this year’s series of The X Factor, which also include the brand new hosts Caroline Flack and Olly Murs. The new series will see the auditions move out of the rooms and straight in to the arenas, with hopefuls having to perform in front of an arena audience from the start in the hope of making it through to the next stage. Further changes will be announced in due course.
The X Factor returns to ITV in autumn this year and applications for the new series are open now.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
