‘The X Factor’ USA season 3: Demi Lovato, Simon Cowell will picks teams in front of audience

While “The X Factor” USA has us all excited with promises of a fun judging panel that actually gets along, they then go and try to ruin it by getting rid of the one part of the competition that we really enjoyed: The judges’ houses. We know that they were not really at the judges’ actual houses, but this was fun and a little showcase of rich people being rich. Plus, it marked an opportunity for the show to bring in some star advisers.

So why the shift away from one of their most-popular rounds? The simple answer to this could simply be budget, but we also figure it may involve Simon Cowell trying to just do something new to keep the excitement level high this year. With that, we have the news that the last round of the competition will take place in front of a live audience on September 8 and the 9.

If you head over to the link here (uncovered by Mjsbigblog), you can get a basic sense of how the judges will decide on the acts that they want to bring to the live rounds. There will be ten that enter, and presumably only three or four that leave depending on how the producers want to divide up the rest of the season. Personally, we’d like to just see a top 12 so there are fewer double-eliminations and we get a chance to know all of the singers better.

We’re really not sure that this move or anything else will save the show as a whole. There are just way too many competitions like this on American television at the same time; while the British show has seemingly turned around its ratings slide, it has the added benefit of not having to air at the same time as “The Voice.”

Photo: Fox