Was Simon Wrong?????

When the reality singing competition show “The Voice” announced that they would expand their blind auditions coverage to three nights, music mogul and judge for “The X Factor” cried foul play. Cowell claimed that NBC was trying to “steal” viewers from “The X Factor”.

As it turned out, Cowell indeed had something to worry about. After the numbers were released by Nielson Sound Scan, viewership for “The X Factor” is down significantly from the same time last year when the show made its debut. According to Nielson the numbers are down 25 percent from last year with a total viewership of around 8.5 million with some viewers switching channels to “The X Factor” once “The Voice” was over. According to Nielson “The Voice” had a viewership of 10.7 million.

While “The X Factor” seemed to focus more on the sob stories of the singing hopefuls than the actual singing;’ “The Voice”, while they had their share of stories, spent more time on the singer’s performances.

But the number of viewers tuning into the reality competition show is not the only thing Simon Cowell may need to worry about.

One of the many stories aired during the show was for former boy band singer Vincent Thomas. During his video clip Thomas said that he and his band mates toured Europe and Asia performing before sold out crowds of 65,000. But once Thomas hit the stage and performed for the judges, Cowell inferred that Thomas could not sing saying that in every boy band there was one member who didn’t sing and that was Thomas.

A member of the boy band US5, Thomas and his band mates were a multi platinum selling band who performed for thousands of screaming girl fans. And although the band is no longer together, many of those screaming girls are still fans.

The audition on “The X Factor” was to be Thomas’ US debut. In fact, it was “The X Factor” that contacted Thomas, not the other way around. “I don’t know how they got my number, but they called me repeatedly telling me that they wanted me to come and audition,” said Thomas.

Among Thomas’ credits is a video for “High School Musical #: The Boys are Back” and a duet with The BeeGees Robin Gibb.

This is just the latest incident of obviously good singers being passed over for questionable talent. The number of winners on “American Idol” who have failed to make a significant mark on the music world after the judges proclaimed them “stars” and “divas” is evidence of some questionable ability. While the winners of previous singing competition shows have released a debut album within months of the “tour” having concluded, season one “The X Factor” winner Melanie Amaro has yet to release her album and no date has been set for that release.