There has been much debate about the current series of X Factor falling foul of the code set out by broadcast regulator Ofcom. In this guest post Russell Goldsmith (@russgoldsmith), digital director at broadcast PR agency markettiers4DC, explores some of the issues.

So we’ve reached the Final. Not yesterday’s Final. That couldn’t be the Final as Cher got voted off. But the final Final.

However you dress it up, this year’s X Factor has been more controversial than any previous year.

I’ve watched the show in a very different way, partly because aside from Matt and Rebecca, there’s a tremendous lack of talent, but what’s seems to have been the topic of most conversations has been the incredible PR machine supporting the show.

Simon says
Whatever you view of the show you can’t help but admire Simon Cowell. Whatever Simon says it seems, goes.

Whether it’s okay to have an existing record deal, continually plug the downloads, use auto tuning, not select better singers whose parents might have visa issues, allow your fellow judges to abstain from their one role on the live show, appear to know when to go to deadlock and when not to, or change the format of the semi-final on the day, there’s certainly been plenty to talk about.

Ofcom’s X Factor to-do list
But all of that aside, the most interesting thing for me has been what appears to be a complete lack of respect shown to rules set down by broadcast regulator Ofcom.

Ofcom is to examine how the show encourages viewers to visit its website to download tracks they have heard acts performing.

According to Ofcom rules it is fine for ‘programme-related material’ such as songs sung by the contestants, but not by the guest acts, although the response from the producers claimed that the issue arouse “as a result of a script error.”

Complaints to Ofcom have also been made by fans who felt they were misled around the alleged change to the semi final format but again, the response from Cowell on that occasion was that “maybe if we misled people it wasn’t intentional. I think what Dermot said was you have to vote to keep people in even if he didn’t say there was going to be a sing-off.”

Further complaints that were made to Ofcom have included Cheryl Cole hinting on The Xtra Factor that Wagner has “an evil streak which the public is not seeing.”

Cross promotion: programme content vs ads
But the one thing above all of these that got my attention from a broadcast marketing and PR perspective is based around that first advertising slot after the guests have performed on the show.

I first spotted this when Mark Borkowski (@markborkowski) retweeted Guardian columnist and presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Media Show’s Steve Hewlett (@steve_hewlett) on 31 October.

I then started to notice this happening time and time again, the most obvious one being when the show’s theme for the week was The Beatles songs – what a coincidence that it just so happened to be the week that they became available on iTunes. Guess what the first ad was for during one of the breaks.

30-second spots in this week’s shows will, according to Media Week, trade for around £235,000 and potentially up to £300,000 break before the result is announced.

So it’s therefore not unreasonable to suggest that once again, the real winner won’t necessarily be the person left on stage at the end of the show (ask Steve Brookstein, Shayne Ward or Leon Jackson) but instead, those who appear to use this monster of a commercial success to get away with breaking or certainly exploiting all the broadcast rules.

Simon says vote One Direction (actually, so does my daughter). Russell says vote for Spurs fan Matt Cardle!