Susan Boyle
Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle was dragged into the X Factor Auto-Tune row today when it was revealed that the Scottish singer’s first appearance was digitally tweaked.
The X Factor this week admitted using technology to smooth out faults in contestants’ singing during the audition stages. Today the Standard learned that the same techniques are used on Simon Cowell’s other reality show, Britain’s Got Talent.
A show insider said: “The exact same techniques are used on Britain’s Got Talent as on The X Factor — it’s the same production team. The sounds are cleaned up — it’s an open secret and an industry standard.
“This goes for everyone — even Susan Boyle’s audition was smoothed out in post-production to give it the best possible sound.”
Boyle’s audition was seen by more than 120 million people on YouTube and helped make her a global star. A spokeswoman for Talkback Thames, producer of both shows, said: “In line with standard television practice, sound filtering technology has been used on Britain’s Got Talent on our pre-recorded shows, but this does not unfairly reflect any singer’s performance.
“The performance shown on screen is a fair reflection of performance given in the live theatre. Judges make their decision based on that live performance.”
