The number of ad breaks tonight was a total joke. I couldn't get into the show at all, because of the need to insert an ad break in after every 5 minutes

Sky + is your friend! No wonder the ratings are down. About 10 minutes of singing and 80 minutes of ad breaks, competitions and pointless fluff.

I swear it never used to be this bad.

agreed, theres an ad break after every act now. its just pointless

Tonight's number of ad breaks was beyond a joke. It was even worse than trying to watch Downton Abbey live!

They must be making a fortune with those ads, so they cram in as many as possible.

At least there's Last of the summer wine to switch over to on Yesterday after 9pm during the ads.

I v+ it and let it get twenty minutes ahead so that its not too far behind but enough to fast forward if necessary.

I remember the good old days when it used to be one ad break after every 3 or 4 performances

...........you lucky, lucky sod

2 hours of show with just seven singing was ridiculous Sky plus for me from now on.

NEVER watch it live, always on record.

Cuts out the ads and a lot of the other rubbish such as competition details etc.

Wonder what percentage of the show is actually singing and judges comments?

I normally do this too. I thought I had it all sorted being 45 minutes behind tonight because I had been watching a film on Sky. By the time I had fast forwarded the 20 or more minutes of previous auditions and the 'fault' announcement plus the ads I was only 8 minutes ahead. The X Factor team 'got me' this week.

roughly 5 minutes in total for each act. You could easily watch the programme in just half an hour by cutting out all the rubbish.

It was dreadful. There seemed to be a break after every act. Really annoying. Don't know if I will bother watching again.

I always "stagger" it for this very reason and also to scan through Frankie, oh wait a minute.

...and 5 in total for the whole show tomorrow too.

You could always rush off and make a cuppa during the ad breaks. Give the bods controlling the National grid something to do switching power stations in and out

all those cuppas would having me peeing the bed!!

I always watch it recorded. I can watch the whole show in 40 minutes!

You'd think the fact they started late due to technical problems would make them want to blitz through all the acts by 9:45, not drag it out relentlessly.

The frequent advert breaks annoy me too but I presume they're used to allow the setting up of the stage for the next act.

Aren't there some guidelines about the frequency and amount of ad breaks? At risk of sounding like a Daily Mail reader, last night's amount of ad breaks is worthy of complaint.

What happens for the audience during the ad breaks? Do they just talk among themselves?

Same. I had to watch two ad breaks

Just did a quick google, apparently for documentaries, game shows and reality Tv shows the guidelines state "no more than 12 minutes per hour". With ads after every performance, they must surely have exceeded that last night.

Normally,I'm not home to watch anyway,but last night made me really appreciate the beauty of being able to skip forward. It usually takes half an hour or less to watch all the parts of the show that aren't completely unnecessary.

I always record Strictly and X Factor. Then I start watching Strictly about 30 minutes after it's begun (so I can ff through Brucie's "jokes" and the cringeworthy VTs), and then I leave it another 10 minutes after Strictly finishes to start watching X factor. You need at LEAST 45 minutes in the bank so you can ff through the ads. More when Frankie was in, so I could ff him as well...