Last year (2012) when I sat down to watch The X Factor, I was surprised to see the contestants sitting there using Samsung tablets. I would have expected, honestly, for them to be using iPads, for no other reason than these were at the time far and away the most popular tablets in the market.

As the weeks went on I kept seeing Samsung tablets in the show. Eventually I discovered that The X Factor was one of the first TV programmes in the UK to use product placement. Although this had been ille...