X Factor Indonesia

The show is primarily concerned with identifying singing talent, though appearance, personality, stage presence and dance routines are also an important element of many performances. Each judge is assigned one of four categories: "Girls" (aged 15–25 females), "Boys" (aged 15–25 males), "Over 26s" (solo acts aged 26 and over), or "Groups" (including duos; some of which may be formed from rejected soloists after the audition process). Through the live shows, the judges act as mentors to their category, helping to decide song choices, styling and staging, while judging contestants from other categories. The one and only season that "Over 26s" divided to two categories: "Male" and "Female" based on contestants gender was the third season. In the fourth season, it's the return of the four categories format.

There are five stages to the competition:

• Stage 1: Producers' auditions (these auditions decide who will sing in front of the judges)
• Stage 2: Judges' auditions
• Stage 3: Bootcamp (including a six-chair challenge since season 2)
• Stage 4: Judges' houses
• Stage 5: Live shows (finals)

The show is open to solo artists and vocal groups aged 15 and above, with no upper age limit. The first set of auditions is held in front of the show's producers, which is not televised. Only candidates who successfully pass the producers' auditions are invited to perform to the judges. The judges' auditions are held in front of a live audience and the acts sing over a backing track. In that case, at least three out of four judges (two out of three, for the panel of three judges) have to say "yes" for the auditionee to advance to the next round, otherwise they are sent home. In addition, there is an online audition too in which the auditionees can upload their performance on the X Factor Indonesia website and the get the vote from viewers on YouTube. An auditionee with the most voted video will get the chance to meet the judges and awarded cash prize.

A selection of the auditions in front of the judges – usually the best, the worst and the most bizarre – are broadcast over the first few weeks of the show.

The contestants selected at auditions are further refined through a series of performances at "bootcamp", and then at the "six chair challenge", to the "judges' home visit", until a small number eventually progress to the live finals. In the bootcamp, contestants will have to go through a series of challenges until the number of contestants were trimmed down and divided according to their categories. At the end of bootcamp, the producers will also reveal which category the judges will be mentoring. The judges then disband for the "six - chairs challenge" round, where they further reduce their acts to the "judges' home visit" round on which they must selected their three finalist for each season located at a residence with the help of a celebrity guest mentor.

The finals consist of a series of two gala live shows, with the first featuring the contestants' performances and the second revealing the results of the public voting. Celebrity guest performers will be featured regularly.

The performance show occasionally begins with a group performance from the remaining contestants. The show is primarily concerned with identifying a potential pop star or star group, and singing talent, appearance, personality, stage presence and dance routines are all important elements of the contestants' performances. In the initial live shows, each act performs once in the first show in front of a studio audience and the judges, usually singing over a pre-recorded backing track. Dancers are also commonly featured. Acts occasionally accompany themselves on guitar or piano.

Each live show has had a different theme; each contestant's song is chosen according to the theme. After each act has performed, the judges comment on their performance. Heated disagreements, usually involving judges defending their contestants against criticism, are a regular feature of the show. Once all the acts have appeared, the phone lines open and the viewing public vote on which act they want to keep. Once the number of contestants has been reduced to six, each act would perform twice in the performances show. This continues until only three acts remain. These acts go on to appear in the grand final which decides the overall winner by public vote.

The two acts polling the fewest votes are revealed. Both these acts have to perform again in a "final showdown", and the judges vote on which of the two to send home. They were able to pick new songs to perform in the "final showdown". Ties are possible as there are four judges voting on which of the two to send home. In the event of a tie the result goes to deadlock, and the act who came last in the public vote is sent home. The actual number of votes cast for each act is not revealed, nor even the order. Once the number of contestants has been reduced to five, the act which polled the fewest votes is automatically eliminated from the competition (the judges do not have a vote; their only role is to comment on the performances).

The winner of the X Factor Indonesia is awarded a recording contract from Sony Music Indonesia for season 1 until 2 and Hits Records since season 3, which would include investments worth 1 billion rupiah, which is claimed as the largest guaranteed prize in Indonesian television history. Several cash rewards from the sponsors, including a new car and motorcycle, is also awarded for the grand finalists in the first season.[7]

In each season, each judge is allocated a category to mentor and chooses a small number of acts (three for season one) to progress to the live shows. This table shows, for each season, which category each judge was allocated and which acts he or she put through to the live shows.

Key:

  – Winning judge/category. Winners are in bold, eliminated contestants in small font.

• All information from this table comes from Nielsen Audience Measurement Indonesia.

In week six of season one, Ahmad Dhani and Rossa opted to send home Alex Rudiart in favor of Gede Bagus, causing the elimination of Alex Rudiart. This decision resulted in large amount of criticisms and outrages from the public, who claimed the decision as unfair. As a result, a lot of social media reactions begin to appear including several motion to boycott the show.[9]