Why ‘X Factor’ Was Abruptly Cut Off During Wednesday Night’s Broadcast

Wednesday night’s episode of The X Factor has been benched until Tuesday due to a two-hour rain delay of Major League Baseball’s National League Championship Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants.

As a result, only part of the “Judge’s Home Round” episode — which reveals the final 16 singers left in the competition selected by judges Britney Spears, L.A. Reid, Demi Lovato and Simon Cowell — was aired.

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Fans tuning in to the beginning of the show’s 8 p.m. start time instead saw a rerun of Ben and Kate. Although the program did resume around 8:40 p.m., Fox cut out again, airing part of The Mindy Project before rejoining the ball game.

According to Fox, the network received word that the delay was expected to last well beyond primetime, so a decision was made to begin airing the show in East Coast markets. An hour into the broadcast, the rain subsided, and when the game was set to resume, the X Factor feed was pulled with the expectation that a switch would be made back to baseball. When that didn’t immediately happen, a partial episode of The Mindy Project was tossed on the air as a stopgap.

Further complicating matters was a technical issue on the West Coast in which the East Coast feed of the show was broadcast prior to the show’s 8 p.m. start time, allowing some viewers to see the results earlier than normal. To remedy this, an encore presentation of The X Factor was aired at 8 p.m.

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East Coast audiences learned the fate of Spears’ teen team and Reid’s over-25s category but were cut off from Lovato’s young-adults reveals midway through her eliminations. Cowell’s groups category never aired.

On the bright side, X Factor season one finalist Josh Krajcik will benefit, in a weird way, when the show re-airs in full at 8 p.m. Oct. 23. His song “Let Me Hold You” was featured as a clip on the show and will get double exposure with the repeat.

Cowell, on the other hand, sees no rainbow after the storm, at least for the moment. He made his displeasure known immediately on Twitter shortly after the debacle.

It what’s known as a total f up.

— Simon Cowell (@SimonCowell) October 18, 2012