The ratings don't usually go down in these big football matches regardless of the scoreline. (I think georgeS has also said this before)

Good example is the last Home qualifier against Andorra. England were 3-0 up by half time but the coverage still averaged 8m!

There might be a few screaming headlines to the ratings reports in various media outlets. They can be a bit OTT at times.

SCD will do very well out of it I'm sure. It's a performance show with a vote and elimination against an X Factor audition show.

It has a 35 minute head start on the X Factor and is on for a further 65 minutes after the XF start. As has been said, commercial free shows always have a massive advantage anyway.

If this is how it's going to be as X Factor get's into the Saturday performances, they'll have to settle for a share of the spoils on a Saturday, with SCD edging it I reckon and X Factor pulling them in on a Sunday.

Walk on the wildside ends in three weeks and will probably be replaced by hole in the wall. Will talkback thames allow two of their shows to compete against each other?

Agreed.

The BBC has, apart from the last year, played at least some of SCD against X Factor-so it isnt anything new. As for "nasty"-not sure where that is coming from. BBC1 is a regular "channel of the year" so it must be doing something right. The BBC gets 3.5 billion a year and as far as I am concerned, it needs to be populist with that kind of money.

I don't know. I don't know whether or not TT would have any say.

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Based on Hole in the Wall having a 10 episode run:

September 12th - Walk on the Wild Side (5/8)
September 19th - Walk on the Wild Side (6/8)
September 26th - Walk on the Wild Side (7/8)
October 3rd - Walk on the Wild Side (8/8)
October 10th - Hole in the Wall (1/10)
October 17th - Hole in the Wall (2/10)
October 24th - Hole in the Wall (3/10)
October 31st - Hole in the Wall (4/10)
November 7th - Hole in the Wall (5/10)
November 14th - Hole in the Wall (6/10)
November 21st - Hole in the Wall (7/10)
November 28th - Hole in the Wall (8/10)
December 5th - Hole in the Wall (9/10)
December 12th - Hole in the Wall (10/10)

The above is going by the assumption that SCD final night is December 19th.

(my hope is that HITW will not be on October 17th, but unfortunately I'm not a BBC scheduler)

Note that Merlin starts on September 19th and is scheduled to also finish on December 12th.

Nobody's suggesting the BBC shouldn't be making Strictly or other programmes of that ilk, just questioning its motives for scheduling it the way it is. Everyone had an issue with ITV scheduling Emmerdale against EastEnders but when it's something like this it seems to be perfectly legitimate.

Wouldn't it better to compliment ITV's schedule and vice versa? To reach a compromise would be a better result for everyone.

ITV are clearly riled using words like "aggressive" to describe a mere slot change. Bit of a sly way for them to intimate that the Beeb are being overly competitive for a non commercial network.

But I get tired of hearing this argument. I mean, what's the alternative, the BBC reverts to a BBC News simulcast every time ITV shows something remotely popular? I don't think so.

If anything this schedule clash should reinvigorate both shows with bragging rights at stake and the viewer should benefit from a marked increase in quality as each attempts to outdo the other by providing the most entertaining TV possible from week-to-week. And this in turn will help generate extra column inches in the papers as well, especially if the ratings battle is as close as I suspect it might be.

And let's not forget BBC iPlayer and ITV's seemingly endless stream of TXF repeats on ITV2, meaning that it really doesn't have to be a case of either or. Heck, there's even such a thing called a PVR where viewers can record shows that clash and watch them another time. Incredible I know.

Bring it on I say!

I wonder why . Yeah the strictly final was confirmed for the 19th on the strictly twitter feed with week 9 being filmed in Blackpool.

I think there's a lesson for ITV in the Emmerdale/EastEnders thing. EastEnders suffered more from starting 30 minutes in to Emmerdale.

The head-start thing can be very important, so if ITV don't want to take advantage of the weak links at the start of BBC One's Saturday night schedule, they (ITV) should arrange their schedule to have The X Factor starting no later than Sctrictly Come Dancing begins.

Should be easily done (unless there's a football match) because ITV (almost?) always confirm their ITV1 schedules a few hours after BBC One's get signed off.

There's also a Hole in the Wall best bits/unseen bits compilation, but that might be kept for some slot over the Christmas period.

I agree Pizza I think this is the only way ITV can limit the damage of a clash. Like you say, it's not going to do them any good if they're starting after Strictly, as people will already be watching on the other side and without ads there's no opportunity to switch over.

I suppose the one good thing is that it sees the return of a true 'ratings battle' which was missing last year because they rarely clashed.

I agree I think competition is an great thing, it will give both production teams drive to make the best possible show.

Quote from the guardian article-It is disappointing that they are effectively splitting the audience – .said an ITV source.

They didnt seem to care too much about that when they put Last years Britains got talent against Andrew LLoyd Webbers Oliver show.

Why do newspapers always put a source said when it's clearly made up? The Sun do it all the time especially when they have a BBC bashing story, The Sun also have the tedency to put certain words in capital letters like when describing Graham Norton they use CAMP rather than camp and Ellen DeGeneres was described as a LESBIAN.

I don't think The Guardian is comparable to The Sun! If they're quoting a source the chances are it probably is a source.

ITV are always doing it. The BBC let them get away with murder a lot of the time. But then when the shoe's on the other foot they don't like it and throw a hissy fit in public. Very mature.

I think they should have more confidence in their own show since it appears to be defying the odds like fellow behemoth BGT by enjoying further growth year-on-year so far this series. As long as the show holds up in terms of quality I don't think they have much to worry about.

I suspect next year we'll see a show at the top of the pile other that BGT/TXF.....

.....I hope!

It's not about having confidence in their show. Whether or not XF beats SCD doesn't really matter to ITV (maybe Cowell, but not ITV). If scheduled properly, XF probably will win so long as it can maintain its current momentum. The issue is that it's going to be damaged by directly competitive scheduling. If all ITV cared about was having higher ratings than SCD for the overnights, they would take away all the repeats.

The Guardian article will be a real source, deliberately leaked by ITV. Needless to say, there will be more to come.

I think Brucie gave the game away at the press conference with his little performance.

For the 9 weeks where XF and SCD aired performance shows on a Saturday last year:

23.1 million people watched TV during the SCD slot (40% of them watched SCD)
24.7 million people watched TV during the XF slot (42% of them watched XF)

So there’s not much of a difference in how many people were watching TV. Considering that the ITV opposition to SCD was usually pretty weak (sometimes even the news was part of the slot) it’s not surprising that the total viewing audience was a bit lower. As Strictly found out in the most watched slot of the week (8pm Sunday), it comes with its own problems in the form of tougher competition.

There doesn't seem to be a particularly good explanation for moving SCD to 7.30pm other than to get a victory. If XF and SCD are going head-to-head every week, both of them are going to do worse than they otherwise would have while proving inconvenient for a propotion of the audience. Meanwhile Merlin is going to lose viewers as well. And Who Dares Wins doesn't do anything no matter what its lead-in is.

I do think we may eventually end up in a situation where there is just an overlap of 30 minutes or so. Looking at what BBC1 have to come, Strictly can't keep starting at 7.25pm. So if they bring it a bit earlier, ITV will probably push XF as late as is possible.

Be interesting to see how Derren Brown rates tonight across all fours, and also if the BBC Lottery draw had a noticeable dip.

And his show on Friday should rate pretty well too - but in subsequent weeks going up against Strictly won't help.

Considering how late ITV were prepared to run the X Factor results last year, theres surely nothing stopping them starting the show at 8-8.30pm and running till past 10 with the main show this year, is there?

As for BBC One being "too competetive", well I said a few weeks back that argument is frankly made pretty void by the cancellation of the Sunday show. BBC One are cutting back on the minutes of SCD this year and have evidently decided to therefore showcase the condensed version at the heart of primetime. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Perhaps with TXF now taking a nice Sunday slot TPTB at the BBC believed a sort of 'straight-swap' of last years arrangements would be a fair solution, with ITV taking the earlier Saturday start, but enjoying the benefits of the Sunday show (just as SCD did last year)?

Seems like a well reasoned argument to me.

I can see the Derren Brown show having a high rating but not benefiting the programmes either side

I doubt the BBC lottery draw will be effected much, most Channel 4 viewers probably don't religiously tune in to the Midweek Draws anyway.