TWITTERLAND WAS ALIGHT with clever quips about Britain’s most popular reality television show last night after it failed to go to air on time.

The X Factor was delayed by more than 15 minutes because of what it described as “technical difficulties outside our control”.

Those watching on UTV were treated to a montage of first auditions by contestants (including some who are still in contention, others who have already been booted off and the unfortunates who didn’t even make the live shows). Meanwhile, TV3 decided to replay an episode of Xposé.

However, viewers did not seem to be paying much attention, instead turning to their social media sites to guess the cause of the delay.

The X Factor official Twitter account boasted that 30,000 tweets per hour were coming in about their #technicaldifficulties.

The matter was eventually cleared up with an apology from host Dermot O’Leary and an explanation that there was a failure at the BT Tower caused by a power spike.

Quite appropriately, contestant Amelia Lily closed the broadcast with a rendition of Queen’s “The Show Must Go On.”

Here is a selection of some of our favourite tweets following the mishap: