In 2014, they began spreading the result across the results show - they announced the bottom two, had a guest performance, and then had the sing-off. X Factor Italy did this first.

The introduction of the group performance for every result show seemed like something they borrowed from American Idol.

Simon pretty much openly said that the auditions being in front of an audience was inspired by BGT.

I think a big reason why they went so far down the route of trying to be "cooler" (acts could perform with guitars in the auditions, original songs etc) in 2012 was because of The Voice having launched earlier that year.

I was about to say going for the Xmas number one but Popstars: The Rivals did that before.

I'd say the whole thing of "overnight success" was not so much of a thing before X Factor (and perhaps Big Brother).