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Why The X Factor Needs Ashly Williams Back
The Video Statistics 6 months after the X Factor Audition
The Video Statistics 6 months after the X Factor Audition
Article, Mar 2, 2014
Ashly Williams made a massive hit as she auditioned on the X Factor singing I Will Always Love You. 6 months after the audition was broadcasted on September the 19th, the question is whether it was a clever move to queue up for the X Factor contest.
In order to answer the question, this survey compares the YouTube video statistics of the top 5 contestants: Lillie McCloud (LM), Rion Paige (Pa), Rachel Potter (Po), Ashly Williams (AW) and Alex and Sierra (AS).
On Oct 27th, 2013, a survey was carried out according to which the top 5 videos had been viewed the following number of times (million views):
As one would expect, the number of views are fairly evenly balanced. The only exception is Rion Paige with a staggering 12.5 million views. 8 or even 7 million views would be very noticeable, so 12 million views seem a bit odd. It requires an incredible acceleration to start from zero and within a month and a half reach a level almost 2.5 times greater than that of number two, Lillie McCloud.
The number of likes
The number of views is of course the most obvious indicator, however, since one viewer can repeat videos endlessly, it is reasonable to search for other indicators to measure how the viewers actually react to each video.
Such an indicator is the number of likes. One viewer can only click Like once (when logged in). Using the number of likes as an indicator, the above picture in the Oct 27th survey completely changed. Suddenly, Ashly Williams came out on top among soloists. Only the extremely popular couple Alex and Sierra had a better rate.
Number of Likes per 1,000 views
This meant that for each one thousand views, 12 viewers had clicked the Like button on Ashly Williams' audition video.
6 months onwards, more statistical material is available. Again, it is interesting to examine the indicators:
- total number of views per video
- number of likes per view
- number of views per day
When this survey was carried out on March 1st, 2014, the total number of views reveals 5 somewhat predictable graphs (click to enlarge):
The graph of Lillie McCloud, whose audition video got off to a brilliant start, is the only one to be losing ground.
(...continued)
Rion Paige comes out on top again with more than 21 million views. The rest is a mix up since the last survey. Ashly Williams who was last at the Oct 27th survey has moved up one step. Relatively, the numbers have increased by
Alex & Sierra seem to have made the greatest increase - 156 % - but that is no surprise: after all they finished the X Factor contest season 3 as overall winners. The only other contestants to have made an increase greater than 100 % is Rachel Potter and Ashly Williams.
A similar pattern could have been observed for the number of comments except that YouTube deletes old comments when a certain threshold has been exceeded. In Ashly Williams' case the threshold seems to be 9,000 comments. Before the threshold was reached, Ashly Williams had the best score among the top contestants (Alex & Sierra not included).
The number of daily views
To get a more detailed view of how things develop, you need to look at the number of daily views, click to enlarge.
The daily readings indicate graphs that decrease slightly as time progresses. This is expected. The readings are influenced by several factors including what time of the day readings are carried out.
Because readings have not been carried out at the exact same time every day (in general between 4 pm and 6 pm), the graphs run a parallel zig-zag. This is obvious when you look at the pattern from January 14th to January 23rd (there were no readings on January 25th and 26th).
Again, the only exception is the graph of Rion Paige. It seems something happened on February 5th, when the daily rate suddenly started to climb. It reached a staggering 140,000 views on February 10th before plummeting to a more reasonable level. Whatever caused the deviation, it looks most peculiar.
It could be interesting to check other indicators such as the number of likes per 1,000 views. First, the number of likes must be read. On March 1st the readings were as follows:
AS : 110,949 likes : 13,138,498 views
Pa : 104,377 likes : 21,159,310 views
AW : 73,457 likes : 8,315,972 views
Po : 66,156 likes : 9,795,982 views
LM : 58,089 likes : 8,151,769 views
This gives the following number of likes per 1,000 views:
This time, Ashly Williams comes out on top even when you include Alex and Sierra. So, even though Ashly Williams' video is not the top video, she could actually be the most popular among those who watch the top 5 videos.
Conclusion
The question before this survey was whether it was sensible or pointless of Ashly Williams to queue up for the X Factor contest. The conclusion is clear: being able to compete with the top contestants more than suggests Ashly Williams made the right decision.
At the audition, just before Ashly Williams started singing, Simon Cowell asked Ashly: "Do you think there's a place for you in the market?"
"Definitely I do", Ashly answered.
Demi Lovato confirmed this when she, after Ashly had finished, concluded: "There is a place for you in the market"!
Article Mar 2nd 2014 by Poul Madsen, apoma.dk
About this survey; this survey is a summary of the daily readings of Ashly Williams' audition video on You Tube since October 5, 2013. Since January 2014 it includes the readings of the audition videos of Rion Paige, Lillie McCloud, Rachel Potter and Alex & Sierra. Only videos published by The X Factor USA are included. The readings were carried out daily between 4 pm and 6 pm CET with occassional deviations. All readings are available on request.
