The X Factor (American TV series) season 1

The first season of the American version of the music competition show The X Factor began airing on Fox on September 21, 2011.
Based on the UK format, the competition consists of auditions, in front of producers and then the judges with a live audience; boot camp; judges' houses and then the live finals. Auditions for the show began in March 2011 and concluded in June 2011. The show was hosted by Welsh TV presenter Steve Jones, while the original judging panel consisted of Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Paula Abdul and L.A. Reid. Cole later departed from the show after just two audition rounds and was replaced by Nicole Scherzinger, who originally co-hosted with Jones.
An early preview of The X Factor aired during the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 12, 2011. Another preview was shown following NFL on Fox on September 11. The show was simultaneously broadcast in Canada on CTV or CTV Two, depending on schedule.
Season one's finale aired on December 22, 2011, resulting in Melanie Amaro as the winner, and Simon Cowell as the winning mentor.

Judges and hosts

At the time of announcing the USA show of The X Factor, Cowell was the only confirmed judge. Eventually, Grammy Award-winning record executive, songwriter, and record producer L.A. Reid, The X Factor UK judge Cheryl Cole, and Cowell's former American Idol colleague Paula Abdul Numerous people were speculated to host the series, including High School Musical star Corbin Bleu and The X Factor UK host Dermot O'Leary. On May 8, 2011, Nicole Scherzinger and Welsh presenter Steve Jones were announced as co-hosts of the show.
On May 26, 2011, it was reported that Cole had been dropped from the show and was set to be replaced by Scherzinger. Reports varied over whether she was dropped because American audiences had difficulty understanding her accent, because of a lack of chemistry between her and Abdul, because Cole is unknown to American audiences, because Cole was confused with Sheryl Crow by American audiences, or that she had stepped down herself due to homesickness. Cole's departure was officially confirmed on June 6 in a statement from Fox, which also confirmed Scherzinger as her replacement. Jones would then serve as the sole presenter. On August 5, 2011, Cowell announced that the reason why Cole left was because he gave her the option to be a judge on the 2011 series of the UK show as he felt that she would have been comfortable there. He said that if her departure had anything to do with her not getting along with Abdul then he would not be judging the show. Cole later revealed in a 2012 interview that she had decided to quit the USA show on her own merit and rejected Cowell's offer to return to the UK show after Tulisa already replaced her on the 2011 UK show panel and her unwillingness to be a permanent judge the UK show without Cowell. The other two reasons Cole departed the USA show was due to American audiences having difficulty understanding her accent and Cole being unknown in the United States. Cole later alleviated with Cowell in 2014 and she along with Cowell would both return as judges on the UK show for the 2014 UK series.

Selection process

Auditions

Auditions for producers began in Los Angeles, California, on March 27, 2011, at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. They then took place in Miami, Florida, on April 7, 2011, at the BankUnited Center and continued in Newark, New Jersey's Prudential Center on April 14, 2011. More auditions took place in Seattle, Washington's KeyArena on April 20, 2011, and Chicago, Illinois's Sears Centre on April 27, 2011, and finished in Dallas, Texas's American Airlines Center on May 26, 2011.
It was reported that The X Factor had broken the auditions record in Los Angeles, California on March 27.
The MyStudio HD audition booths opened in Honolulu, Hawaii; Phoenix, Arizona; Nashville, Tennessee; Anchorage, Alaska; Kansas City, Kansas; and Denver, Colorado. Originally scheduled to end on April 30, 2011, the booths' opening ended up being extended until May 8, 2011. After it was announced that people auditioning through this method was in such high demand, auditions at the booths' ended up being extended until May 15, 2011.
On June 3, Cowell announced that applicants could upload a video of them singing onto YouTube and it was opened for one week only. Selected applicants would appear in front of the judges.
The last set of auditions took place during May and June 2011. These auditions individually occur simultaneously before both the judges and a live studio audience; and with such audience in attendance able to applaud/cheer approval or disapproval and perhaps influencing the judges.
Auditions footage first aired on September 21, though they were not aired in the same order that they occurred.

Boot camp

Day one of boot camp started with dance training with choreographer Brian Friedman and then the acts were called to the stage in groups of 10 to sing in front of the judges. After all of them performed, the acts were brought in front of the judges as part of one of three groups. Two of these groups made it through and one was eliminated, leaving 100 acts still in the competition. The judges threw a party for the remaining acts that for many lasted late into the night.
Day two started with everyone getting woken up at 6:00am and heading to meet Reid. He informed them that they would be put into "ensembles" and groups, and would be working with stylists, choreographers, and vocal coaches. They were given five hours to learn the songs they were given. One third of the acts would be eliminated by the end of the second day. Several of the ensembles performances were aired. The first ensemble performed "Creep", the second ensemble performed "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", the third ensemble performed "Desperado", the fourth ensemble performed "Wishing on a Star", the fifth ensemble performed "Superman ", the sixth ensemble performed "Feeling Good", the seventh ensemble performed "I Have Nothing" and the eighth ensemble performed "Run".
Day two continued with more ensembles performing for the judges. The ninth ensemble performed "What's Going On". Next, they showed a couple of quick shots of some ensembles, presumably consisting of all people that would not make it through to the end. The tenth ensemble that was covered in detail performed "I Won't Let Go". The eleventh ensemble performed "Chasing Cars". Next, the judges deliberated, and decided on which a third of the acts would be eliminated. Once again, three groups were brought in. Group 1 was eliminated, meaning groups 2 and 3 made it through to the next round of boot camp.
Day three had all 64 acts perform for the judges. They were given a list of 35 songs at the end of the day two and were told to choose one that best represented them. At the end of this final boot camp round, 32 acts would go through to judges' houses. This final performance was done in front of a crowd of 3,000 people. After each of the performances, the judges gave no feedback.
The first boot camp episode aired on October 5, 2011, and covered the first two days of boot camp. The second bootcamp episode aired on October 6 and covered the rest of day two and the remainder of bootcamp. By the end of bootcamp, 162 acts were cut to 32, 8 acts in each category. The judges later found out which category they would mentor and their acts joined them at their house.

Judges' houses

helped Scherzinger select her contestants in Malibu, California and Pharrell Williams acted as a guest judge helping Abdul to pick her contestants in Santa Barbara, California. Rihanna helped Reid choose his contestants in The Hamptons, New York. Mariah Carey was contracted to aid Cowell in France, but was unable to attend due to Hurricane Irene grounding her flight to Paris, so Cowell was instead assisted by three vocal coaches.
In the United States, footage from judges' houses was originally scheduled to air on October 12, 13 and 18. However, due to weather delaying the start of the 2011 American League Championship Series, the footage from judges' houses 1 was moved to October 13, with footage from judges' houses 2 seen instead on October 16. The footage from judges' houses 3 aired on October 18 as scheduled and featured footage of the judges revealing their four finalists in each category to take through to the live shows. In Canada, the judges' houses 1 episode was broadcast as originally scheduled on October 12. No episode was shown in Canada on October 13, with CTV and CTV Two opting to follow Fox's scheduling changes to take advantage of simultaneous substitution rules.

Judge	Category	Location	Assistant	Acts Eliminated
Abdul	Groups	Santa Barbara, California	Pharrell Williams	2Squar'd 4Shore The Anser Illusion Confusion
Cowell	Girls	France	Three vocal coaches	Melanie Amaro Caitlin Koch Jazzlyn Little Tora Woloshin
Reid	Boys	The Hamptons, New York	Rihanna	Skyelor Anderson Tim Cifers Brennin Hunt Nick Voss
Scherzinger	Over 30s	Malibu, California	Enrique Iglesias	Tiger Budbill Christa Collins Elaine Gibbs James Kenney

Melanie Amaro was initially eliminated from the Girls' category, but was invited back to the competition after Cowell decided he had made a mistake in not including her, bringing the total number of contestants to 17.

Acts

The top seventeen acts were confirmed as follows;
Key:

Act	Age	Hometown	Category	Result
Melanie Amaro	18	Fort Lauderdale, Florida	Girls	Winner
Josh Krajcik	30	Wooster, Ohio	Over 30s	Runner-Up
Chris Rene	29	Santa Cruz, California	Boys	3rd Place
Marcus Canty	20	Bowie, Maryland	Boys	4th Place
Rachel Crow	13	Mead, Colorado	Girls	5th Place
Drew	14	Chino Valley, Arizona	Girls	6th Place
Astro	15	Brooklyn, New York	Boys	7th Place
LeRoy Bell	60	Tacoma, Washington	Over 30s	8th Place
Lakoda Rayne	17–23	Various	Groups	9th Place
Stacy Francis	42	Los Angeles, California	Over 30s	10th Place
The Stereo Hogzz	24–25	Houston, Texas	Groups	11th Place
InTENsity	12–17	Various	Groups	12th Place
Simone Battle	22	Los Angeles, California	Girls	13th Place
Tiah Tolliver	20	Chula Vista, California	Girls	14th Place
Dexter Haygood	49	Memphis, Tennessee	Over 30s	15th Place
The Brewer Boys	15 & 18	Temecula, California	Groups	16th Place
Phillip Lomax	22	Seattle, Washington	Boys	17th Place