The seventh season of Britain’s The X Factor premiered as recently as August 21, and already it’s the most controversial the series has ever known. The flagship program for its parent network ITV, X Factor has been a reality TV mainstay in the UK - much in the same way that American Idol is a mainstay for the US.

That isn’t the only thing X Factor has in common with the popular US reality series. Like Idol, X Factor is a singing competition where one winner is crowned at the end of the season. Like Idol, X Factor is known for its harshest critic, Simon Cowell. But in light of recent events, American reality fans are hoping that’s all that X Factor has in common with Idol.

Singers on the newest season of X Factor have very clearly had their voices altered with Auto-Tune, an audio processor which corrects pitch and helps singers sound perfectly in tune. Auto-Tune may also be used to the opposite effect, making singers sound very much out of tune when it is applied incorrectly. Cher made the sound of Auto-Tune famous when she used on her “Believe” single. Other well-known singers to apply the technology include Janet Jackson, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

Auto-Tuning has been quite noticeable at the start of the new X Factor season, and public outcry has been so loud that a spokesperson for the show came forward to make a statement:

“The judges make their decisions at the audition stage based on what they hear on the day, live in the arena. The footage and sound is then edited and dubbed into a finished program, to deliver the most entertaining experience possible for viewers.”

Recently, a former employee of the show has come forward to talk about the unfolding scandal:

“It was an open secret on the show that Auto-Tune was used to both make contestants slightly more on key – or off – key. On some occasions it was used to such extremes that while the contestant may have sounded like they were hitting the right note, the backing band had gone right out of tune.

It has been used for a long time on the show both for the auditions and the live shows.”

Simon Cowell has ordered a ban on Auto-Tune since the news broke, and he’s demanding that the production team re-edit all the audition episodes so that only true voices are featured. In other words, he’s taking the stance that he had no idea what was going on.

Of course, X Factor is produced by Simon Cowell’s company SYCOtv.