Simon Cowell has confirmed that he's making some big changes to The X Factor – and he's starting by getting rid of the not-at-all-random jukebox.

Cowell announced the news at the show's auditions in Wembley, telling fans (via The Sun): "All these crazy things we used to do with themes have gone, no more jukeboxes, none of that rubbish this year.

"The public are smart enough to know what's real – that's what we are focusing on this year."

© ITV

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

The jukebox Uncle Si is referring to was, of course, a bit of a joke – being that it was spun at the end of the results show each week to randomly select the following week's theme...

Except it rather conveniently selected Fright Night for Halloween last year.

It makes sense that Simon wants to change things up a bit considering last year's series didn't deliver, with only 6.8 million tuning in for the first episode, and just 7 million watching Matt Terry's crowning moment.

© ITV Thames/Syco Entertainment

Although it sounds like a lot, it's still around 1.4m fewer than the audience that tuned in for the previous year's final.

Even more worrying is that those numbers are 10m down on Matt Cardle's win in 2010, while Strictly Come Dancing has been pulling in more viewers than ever.

So, we came up with a bunch of things Cowell needs to do to fix The X Factor (and possibly beat Strictly Come Dancing). You're welcome, Si.

The X Factor is expected to return to ITV in August.

Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Twitter account and you're all set.