As Teesside’s Amelia Lily tunes up for the X Factor final, Steve Pratt considers whether such shows, which have been around since the Fifties, still have the talent to amuse.

SU POLLARD hoped to wow the audience and find fame singing I’m Just A Girl Who Can’t Say No on one of TV’s earliest talent shows.

Unfortunately for her, the public could say No to her act– and voted her runnerup, behind a singing Jack Russell dog.

Humiliating to come second to a canine vocalist perhaps, but she did better than a singer named Gerry Dorsey. He didn’t even get through auditions to perform on Opportunity Knocks. Undeterred, he changed his name and became famous as Englebert Humperdinck.

As some contenders on the X Factor, the current cream of the TV talent show crop, have found to their cost, winning isn’t everything.

Sometimes time really is up after those initial 15 minutes of fame. One minute you’re singing the Christmas number one single, the next producer Simon Cowell has dumped you and you’re back on your own seeking a recording deal.

Pollard didn’t hold a grudge. For the past decade she’s been touring in the musical Annie alongside an assortment of scene-stealing if non-singing dogs – and the talent show is as alive and well as ever.

Nine years ago, I was writing how the BBC’s new reality talent show Fame Academy had been dubbed Lame Academy as viewing figures slumped to three million for a series that had reputedly cost £4.5m. Have such shows, I wondered, reached the end of the line? Despite the ratings hiccup and viewer backlash suffered by the current series of the X Factor, the answer must be no.

TV companies aren’t going to turn their backs on shows starring the public who don’t need to be cosseted and pampered like stars demanding bowls of yellow M&Ms and the walls painted sky blue pink in their dressing room.

Just bung all the contestants in a single X Factor house and let them get on with it. Plus, there’s a good deal of revenue to be collected from the public phone poll.

How different it all was back in the days of Opportunity Knocks, which had its origins on Radio Luxembourg before host Hughie “I mean that most sincerely” Green transferred the format to TV. Then it was the “clapometer”, a dodgy instrument allegedly measuring the level of audience applause, that gave an idea of the most popular contestant, although a postcard vote decided the winner.

Not Green, but another talent scout – Canadian TV and radio personality Carroll Levis – hit the talent trail first with his Carroll Levis Discovery Show. It earned him the nickname Mr Star-Maker, a role that Simon Cowell likes to think he fills these days.

Opp Knocks gave way to New Faces where a new trend could be spotted – the judges considered themselves as much of a star as any of the contestants. Musician and composer Tony Hatch was cast as the hatchet man whose comments weren’t couched in the politest of terms.

Nowadays, every panel needs a Mr Nasty, whether they’re judging ballroom dancing, ice skating or a singing competition.

Both Opp Knocks and New Faces worked.

Every dog may have had its day and put Pollard out of the show, but, between them, the two programmes discovered a long list of artists, both comic and musical, who’ve enjoyed successful careers. To name a few: Freddie Starr, Frank Carson, Little and Large, Paul Daniels, Peters and Lee, Lena Zavaroni, Lenry Henry, Les Dennis, Victoria Wood and Showaddywaddy.

Of course, there have been thousands of others who didn’t make it. And some of those who did, then faded quickly from view. Others reinvent themselves for longevity in the business.

Like North-East X Factor winner Joe McElderry, although it took competing in another reality show Pop Star To Opera Star to find a new direction and boost his career. Others use success in a talent show to go into different areas, such as presenters or treading the boards as musical theatre stars. Any exposure on primetime TV provides a good showreel for any performer.

While X Factor caters for what you might call the popular music audience, niche Andrew Lloyd Webber-backed talent shows like How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria and I’d Do Anything are more focused. They amount to very long auditions, over several months, for a specific stage role in shows such as The Sound Of Music and Oliver! While the winner is guaranteed work, the also-rans have shown a good record at being snapped up for employment too.

FALLING ratings and worries about the revamped judging line-up have caused some to ask if X Factor has had its day.

True, the new judges began like a breath of fresh air, but soon degenerated into sniping and arguing that seemed more like a bid to get publicity than genuine concerns.

The real reason for the loss of public interest was the judges’ poor selection of contestants, evidenced by the fact that Teesside singer Amelia Lily was rejected for the live competition only to get a wild card re-entry and emerge as a favourite to win.

You can bet that X Factor will be back next year, perhaps with a bit of tweaking here and there, but back all the same and still looking for the next big thing. Even if that didn’t happen, the BBC has a replacement waiting in the wings.

The new year will see the debut of The Voice UK on BBC1, a talent show in which judges choose contestants in a “blind” audition process. Devised by Big Brother creator John de Mol, the show debuted to great success in the Netherlands earlier this year and was followed by a US version.

Whether it has any place for singing dogs has yet to seen and heard.

• X Factor final is on ITV1 on Saturday and Sunday.