The series will be tossed onto the growing scrapheap of talent shows.

Once a staple of Australian prime time – with some drawing more than 4 million viewers nationally – most have lost favour among Australian viewers. Other dance and music shows to have been dumped include: Dancing With the Stars, Australian Idol, It Takes Two, Everybody Dance Now, Popstars, Strictly Dancing and The Singing Bee. Australia's Got Talent won't return to Nine this year, and it's long-term prospects are unclear.

This leaves Nine's The Voice – which still pulls healthy ratings – as our only major TV singing contest.

When Seven revealed its 2017 program slate in October last year, The X Factor was conspicuously absent. It's no wonder. Sometimes, it dipped below 600,000 metropolitan viewers and was regularly thumped by Nine's The Block.

"We are very hard markers on ourselves, versus [other networks]," Seven's programming chief Angus Ross told TV Tonight, which confirmed The X Factor's cancellation.

"Some numbers that may get a pass mark on other networks don't get a pass mark with us. So we have a number of slots to fill, and over the next couple of months we'll be announcing a lot more."

New judges Iggy Azalea and Adam Lambert failed to boost ratings – but don't write off the show just yet. Remember, it began on Ten in 2005, which canned it due to small audiences. Then Seven picked it up a few years later – after Ten dumped Idol – and made it a hit.

A spokesman from Fremantle Media, the company that produces The X Factor, was unable to confirm any plans to revive the series on another network.

So how did it come to this? One minute, every commercial broadcaster wants a shiny floor talent show – then they can't axe them quick enough.

One problem is that shows such as Dancing With the Stars have viewers considered "too old" to appeal to advertisers. (The dubiousness of this assertion deserves closer scrutiny in a separate article.)

A bigger problem is commercial TV's tendency towards self-canibalisation. I see your Popstars and I raise you an Australian Idol! Well, I'll get some celebrities duets from Gold FM! Then I'll get a bloke playing a gum leaf!

Viewers soon tire – not of the genre itself, but of the overload. Still, networks search for the next hot genre. One program will strike gold, then everyone gets in on the action – and the process repeats. (Look at the crop of dating shows following The Bachelor's success with young, female viewers.)

Of course, many are sick of reality altogether. Given it still attracts big audiences, though, it isn't going anywhere soon.

But networks have realised that wall-to-wall cooking and reno shows no longer work. Which is why we're (finally) seeing an increase in Aussie TV drama.

Just a few years ago, some broadcasters viewed local drama quotas as a burden. (The cost-per-hour of reality can be much cheaper than scripted content.)

Then they noticed the huge ratings for the Molly and INXS specials. The loyal audiences for The Secret Daughter and House Husbands. The word-of-mouth that prompted Barracuda's viewership to almost double after its initial broadcast, via iView and other platforms. Investment in Aussie drama is now booming.

Whether we're seeing the dying days of TV talent shows – or merely taking a break – remains to be seen.

As one shiny floor producer told me: "Nothing ruins a popular concept faster than networks trying to clone it into oblivion."