Leonard Cohen to Make a Million From X-Factor

Sunday morning, 9am, at the London offices of music svengali Simon Cowell, and the X Factor team was delirious. It was not just the lack of sleep, it was the fact that the public chose a good winner. Twelve million watched the final on Saturday night, an astonishing 8 million voted, and Alexandra Burke duly won. Burke, they say, has not only got the X-factor, she's got the L-factor. Cowell believes the soul singer will go on to be as big as The X Factor's one true superstar, Leona Lewis. The X Factor is the show that makes stars of unknowns. It also makes millions for Cowell when the public gets it right. Often the public gets it wrong - last year's winner, Leon Jackson, humiliatingly charted at No 3 with his latest single, behind Peter Kay's X Factor satirical sideswipe, The Winner's Song. Occasionally, the public gets it disastrously wrong: the first winner, middle-aged crooner Steve Brookstein, has virtually been erased from X Factor history. Once, the public got it absolutely right, and Lewis went on to global success. Now The X Factor believes it has unearthed a star every bit as bright as Leona. Kerching.