the ITV Press Office has a differnt definition of "exciting" than the rest of us.

They probaly mean that they have sent Adrian & Christine Trick or Treating, and are using the sweets to help bribe former popstar "Lolly" to appear on the show, as this weeks star guest

Possibly 12-13 million is the show's limit, but I don't think anyone at ITV is complaining. Also Mr Cowell has signed a deal for another three series.
A bit of a curved ball this, suppose he does announce it's ending in 2013. My prediction would be that the final series could pull in 15 million viewers, partly as a sympathy vote, as occured to a far lesser extent with BB 11.

The exciting news will probably include more official details about the launch of ITV3 and ITV4 in high-definition. Both expected next month but no date has been set to my knowledge, nor have carriage deals been secured beyond BSkyB.

Well it couldn't just grow every week until Christmas! The overlong Saturday shows have probably harmed it a bit and that will have had a knock-on effect on the Sunday shows. Last night's show being shorter probably cancelled out the Halloween slump which is why it remained level as opposed to the drop that most people expected. The Sunday shows have dipped a bit from that huge judges houses rating but they have grown every week of the live shows so far, and I can't see it running out of steam a bit like it did in the last few weeks last year.

I do agree though that Strictly has done brilliantly this year. They've revamped it and the viewers have returned, and last night's rating was it's highest non-final rating ever I believe. I hope the producers of Dancing on Ice have been taking notes for next year as that also felt tired this year and dipped in the ratings.

As for ITV's 'exciting news', I suspect it'll be one or more of: the announcement of the I'm A Celebrity line up, more info on ITV3 and 4 HD or some announcements for the Christmas schedule.

Also, provisional schedules on the Radio Times website have the Take That documentary down as airing on Saturday November 13 at 9:30pm, displacing Life Stories. Very good scheduling, it could do extremely well there.

What's the point of ITV3/4 in HD? Most of the programmes will still be in SD (maybe with a tiny upscale) as they're so old, like Morse, The Saint, The Professionals, most of Heartbeat etc. The only reason I could think of is for football.

Regarding The X Factor, I'm not sure what will happen:

+ clocks went back, maybe more people will watch TV now, which I think normally does happen
- halloween

Don't know if it's been confirmed anywhere else but in the Attentional overnights.tv news section it says: "ITV3 HD and ITV4 HD will begin BARB reporting on 15th November, 2010." So I'm guessing that's the date they launch.

I'm thinking a bit of a dip on last week, but nothing too major. The possibility of Jay Kay repeating his foul mouthed rant from The Sun live on air might draw a few in too.

It's obvious that ther reason The X Factor isn't growing week on week is because all the extra viewers joined the show from the word go.

Has everyone forgotten the massive increases for the auditions, judges houses etc?

Instead of people suddenly deciding to watch 10 weeks in, they decided to watch from the start.

I believe the plan with ITV3 HD is for it to increase the number of HD programmes it shows over time as ITV re-master their extensive back-catalogue.

At launch only a select few recent programmes will be shown in HD, such as Lewis, Marple and various celebrity travalogues.

So I agree that in its early form, it will be a pretty pointless channel. Over time once the HD content increases it will have more of a use but I'm not sure how much demand there will be to see such shows in HD.

ITV4 HD will be of more use to pay TV customers when it launches due to its increasing sports portfolio. (cricket, football, cycling, snooker, darts & more)

Ah, thanks, that looks like the date then. ITV4 has darts coverage and L.V. Cup highlights that night, whilst Rebus is a new addition to ITV3's primetime schedule.

I love Jamiroquai's music, but he has quite an attitude.....

Yeah, although that Summer Wine ep was on Christmas Eve, I can remember that like yesterday.

My God the Stricty results show is dull. Preferred the format last year. Tess and Claudia are competent but not entertaining. Thank God for Len and Bruno.

Thought this might interest some people.

The X Factor was OK, probably one of the better result shows of the series so far. A few good guest spots, Dermot trying to stir something up between Jamiroquai and the judges after they snubbed him (no standing ovation like other guest artists) and also a slightly surprising bottom two, which eventually went to deadlock for the first time this series.

The rating will probably be slightly down on last week but nothing too dramatic I wouldn't have thought. Halloween should have a lesser effect this year with it falling on a Sunday, a school night.

Little trivia from X Factor: Mass panic at X Factor as the stage was still a total mess 1 minute before returning from ads after Rihanna's performance. People were slipping and falling on it. They had to give up and leave a load of it smeared on the stage.

That's live TV for you. Same with the snubbing of Jay Kay and the drama of Deadlock - one of the reasons I don't miss it.

Strictly doesn't work when its not live - there is no sense of jeopardy or event and nothing interesting ever happens on it.

I thought they may have bit off more than they could chew with that one.

But the worst moment from these Syco shows so far has to be the young girl breaking down mid performance on a live episode of Britain's Got Talent and the normally faultless Ant and Dec's subsequent handling.

Live TV does throw up these spectacular car crash moments occasionally.

Was this, this years BGT? What did Ant and Dec do? Will it be on YouTube?

Last year.

Found a clip for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smYfRmC7rgA

I saw that clip, I think on Charile Brookers Review of the Year, any other showm, would have been axed after that, a low point of all TV.

"Normally faultless"? They handled it brilliantly.

Oh that really was car crash TV! In fairness Ant and Dec can't be blamed, what could they do when they have the producer telling them she can't sing again so she's crying on stage and her mother is begging for her to be given another chance? I thought they handled it superbly, but it was total carnage, and Simon should have stepped in earlier I think. Only on live TV, and you've got to love the irony of Ant's comment before she went on stage!

I might have watched if I'd known Rihanna was going to smear a load of something slippy all over the stage and make a total mess of it....

And before the watershed.

Is it worth me, erm, tracking down the footage?

Oh yeah I remember now! I saw this!