The X Factor ditches live show sing-offs in dramatic format shake up

Instead of the two acts with the fewest votes going head to head in a sing off with the victor decided by judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Nicole Scherzinger and Sharon Osbourne, the decision will now purely be down to the viewers' votes.

The act with the fewest votes from the public will automatically leave the show.

This means that the biggest job for the judges during the live shows will simply be dishing out advice to the wannabes, although RadioTimes.com has been assured that they will still form a huge part of this stage of the competition.

However, it's understood that their input will be very different this year to in previous series.

The idea behind the huge format overhaul is to ensure that the singers who are deemed the best and most popular by the public will be the ones who make it through to the latter stages of the competition, avoiding the situation where an act who hasn't received the lowest number of votes progresses instead.

Whether all these shake-ups will be able to reverse the X Factor's decline in viewing figures remains to be seen.

The X Factor airs Saturdays and Sundays on ITV.