X Factor descends further into chaos

Last night, then, it seemed like the Earth itself had grown tired of the X Factor, with "an unusual power spike" forcing the show off the air for fifteen minutes.

ITV might wish it had stayed off the air, as well, with the curious publication of the results of the phone vote on STV's website an hour before they happened.

STV have the sort of convincing explanation that Theresa May might make:

STV said in a statement: "The STV web team prepared stories regarding each contestant in anticipation of the result and due to a technical hitch, all four stories went live on our website.

"We would stress that this was purely a technical hitch and for this we apologise."

Now, we've all done this - accidentally putting live something that you intended for draft - but it's odd that most people only seem to have spied the page hailing the success of Amelia Lily, the actual winner of the vote; and while preparing the pages in advance makes sense, would they have left it so late to compile the pages?

Doubtless all cock-up, but it doesn't look good.

Especially on a day when people are being encouraged to vote formerly evicted contestants back on to the programme. You might recall that when this happened on Big Brother, Channel 4 were censured and forced to pay £50,000 to the then-phone regulator ICSTIS.