Cowell: Winner "guaranteed" No. 1

Simon Cowell has claimed that the X Factor winner is "guaranteed" the Christmas number one.

The music mogul revealed that 500,000 copies of winning single 'Hallelujah', originally recorded by Leonard Cohen, have already been ordered, despite the fact that the eventual version is yet to be revealed.

"It's a classic pop song and they've all done three very different versions," he said of the show's finalists JLS, Eoghan Quigg and Alexandra Burke.

"The advance orders have already been over 500,000 units so I just cant see how anyone else can compete with that."

Cowell also rejected criticism that the X Factor winning songs have dominated the festive chart over the past five years.

"I don't want to sound too arrogant about it as we've already been accused of ruining the Christmas number one," he said. "We're not ruining it, we're just giving the finalists a chance to have a shot at it."

Referring to Peter Kay releasing a song as alter ego Geraldine McQueen, he said: "Obviously we'd love for the Geraldine single to do well."

The winner's version of 'Hallelujah' will be available from midnight on Saturday.