Speaking to The Wireless, Cliff praised the high standards of all the contestants:

“When you think about it, even the losers on X Factor are good. I mean, they’re really good singers these days.”

He added “When you think of One Direction, five of them, they all lost. None of them won X Factor and they’re the biggest boyband in the world at the moment.”

He later encompassed all current artists “I don’t think the new groups and young singers have the same support system. Today you can have a number one, [but] if your next record’s not number one sometimes they won’t re-sign. It’s because they don’t have the same faith in the artists that my producer and manager, Norrie Paramour and Peter Gormley, had.”

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