Rak-Su have made an instant impact on the iTunes chart following their X Factor triumph.
As of yesterday, the band were at No.1 with their self-penned track Mona Lisa and also sit at No.8 with Dimelo, No.12 with Mamacita and No.25 with Faith. Runner-up Grace Davies' Hesitate is at No.9.
Sunday's final peaked with 7 million viewers on ITV1 for a 28% share at 8.50pm - the highest peak audience for a live show this series. The show averaged 5.2m viewers and a 22% share, with 1.1m/31% share of 16-34 year olds. A total of 4.8m votes were cast across the voting platforms, including the official app.
Speaking to Music Week in the weeks before the final, Simon Cowell said he hoped the success of Rak-Su and Davies would inspire other songwriters to audition for the show.
“I’m always thinking, ‘Are we making a show where a new, young artist would trust this show enough to risk their career on?," he said. “An artist like Rak-Su, for example, probably went through a mental process which was, ‘Do we trust the show enough that it’s going to work for us? Or do we use social media and post videos to build a fanbase? Luckily, they trusted us.
"So if they do well, or Grace does well - they’re the two obvious ones at the moment - then you’ve got the confidence that other people will want to be on the show.
“It’s the legacy of the show and the present legacy that will dictate its future because, if you’re not attracting great talent, then the show can’t continue.”
Syco MD Tyler Brown said the programme's format change for 2017, which encouraged artists to perform their own original compositions, had given the show a "new dynamic".
"I was really pleased to see Grace and Rak-Su at the top of the leaderboard because of that, because they wrote original songs," he said recently. "I think nowadays the audience want the artist front of centre of everything - whether it's the music, whether it's the artwork, whether it's the video, whether it's the tour creative - the audience want authenticity.
"Grace and Rak-Su standing up there singing songs they've written themselves, it doesn't get much more authentic than that. And it showed it in the iTunes chart that's what people want - it doesn't lie."
Read Music Week's full interview with Simon Cowell here. Syco's global head of talent Simon Gavin discusses the show here. To subscribe to Music Week and never miss a big music biz story, click here.
