X Factor's ratings remain very good by today's standards but , let's be honest, it was never going to turn into a ratings flop overnight.

It continues to post a big year-on-year drop which must be a bit of a concern for ITV, whoever much they spin it. The Paralympics may have had an effect. We'll get a better idea on that after next weekend. It'll be interesting to see the ratings for TXF's first Sunday night show next week and the Paralympics closing ceremony.

X Factor is on series 9 so it's quite an old programme. ITV have said they don't expect it to be around for ever, but at the moment they have absolutely nothing to take its place.

Wasn't that the prom which featured Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane? This would attract viewers not normally into classical music.

Yes. And it featured music from Broadway, so more populist than normal.

I switched it off near the end. Rory is awful and Matt Smith's portrayal of the Doctor just doesn't click with me. If the Dalek story had David Tennant in, the episode would have been fantastic.

Therein lies the problem. Suppose TXF continues to shed viewers and finishes its run on 5 million. ITV know that a replacement could get half this audience, and get cancelled after one series, whereas TXF for all it's ageing and losing viewers, is a recognised brand. However, the broadcaster has to realise that its ageing formats like TXF and IACGMOOH will need to be replaced one day.

Can I just say that people really massively overstate the importance of the share. This is particularly odd when the raw figure gives you more than enough to criticise.

Let me ask this, what exactly is your point when you point out that the share is down? What do you think this illustrates?


On this note it may or may not be worth mentioning that Moffat was originally supposed to write the two-part episode that became Evolution of the Daleks back in series 3. So its entirely possible that you nearly got this episode (or something close to it) with David Tennant a few years ago. Although I still don't understand all this ridiculous lingering love for Tennant and its not like this lingering love has translated to anything he's done since being a success. Its very odd.

A typical single-minded argument which really leaves a lot to be desired. Tennant's gone. He left because he wanted to. Get over it. Even HE loves the show now.

The fact people still go on about it him is an insult not just to Matt Smith, but to the previous NINE talented actors that held the role before him.

X-Factor like BB before it is being used in the media (grey tops predominantly at moment) as a metaphor for downgrading values/aspiration. I've lost count of how many articles I've read over the the last 4/6 weeks talking aboiut dumbed down X-Factor society. It was gradually happening but the Olympics has given the media the polar opposites, the black & white that they so love when providing critical comment. This has to have an impact with a segment of society who treated X-Factor (like BB a few years ago) as harmless entertainment 'tat' but now see how pervasive it has been on our younger generation. They will start to turn their noses up at it, devalue it in conversation & it will gradually decline. The question is how far will Cowell let it slide? Will he pull the plug when it still is loved by many or let it die a miserable death. Personally I think Cowell will do the former.

Dr Who's ratings: Let's put this in perspective.

6.4m overnights expected to rise to about 8m in the officials.

Aside from New Tricks, which expects higher, and the three main soaps, if any other drama on this week were to post such figures the production team would be swinging from the chandeliers and holding champagne parties.

If any of ITV1's new dramas this week were to score 6.4m in the overnights, everyone in this thread would be saying "brilliant figures", which it would be.

Dr Who has moved to the Autumn to give BBC1 a strong rating on Saturday nights during the early weeks of the season whilst they wait for Strictly to return. Dr Who's figure last night matching or bettering the figure that Merlin was getting in September 2010 in the officials.

No it is not it is opinion on who they liked best - which they are entitled to - it is in no way insulting.

The share is a very useful gauge of competitiveness, especially when comparing different weeks or years when external factors such as the weather can affect the raw viewership. For example, last night's TXF slightly beat the premiere two weeks ago in headline numbers, but because the premiere aired on a hot day, last night's share was 4.4 points lower: this was essentially a worse performance because there were 2.8 million more viewers available and just 60,000 of those tuned into TXF. But only the share properly illustrates the loss of competitiveness.

(all figures above exc +1)

While the 6.4m for DW is slightly disappointing after the hype and such a brilliant episode, I don't think it will be the highest overnight of this half of the series, that will be the third episode that follows Strictly or the fifth with the companions leaving (even though it hasn't got the first Strictly live show to boost it this year.) I think these 5 episodes will average higher than last years Autumn half, by staying more consistent, hopefully.

This conversation has been had before but Doctor Who isn't just any other drama. This akin to the 'if any other show were getting the same ratings as The X Factor...' argument. Television ratings aren't black and white. There isn't a default good and bad rating that applies to every show. Each show has its own set of expectations and like it or not the expectation was that Doctor Who should have done a lot better than it did last night. And that was a perfectly reasonable and logical expectation.

Equally I notice that you're looking at Merlin from 2010 not 2011. Interesting choice. Also Merlin isn't Doctor Who.

I assume that include C4 HD, which continued showing the Paralympics (with More4 rejigged to accomodate the 30 minutes of extra coverage, which originally wasn't planned.

C4 have now seen sense too and dropped Come Dine with Me, The Simpsons and Hollyoaks for the week, so More4 just has 30 minutes of coverage a day while C4 shows the news. Hollyoaks moves to E4 at 6.30pm, with the first look episode still at 7pm.

I also think just a few days in the ratings would justify them bidding for the Rio games in 4 years time. Not so sure if they'd bother with the Winter Paralympics - the BBC only showed a one-hour round up last time and it's a much smaller event in comparison with much less British interest.

I can't see Cowell let the show do a BB and die slowly and be moved to Channel 5. He'll probably watch the ratings very closely this year and next and cancel TXF while it's still reasonably popular as he has been rattled by the failure of ROB.

to be fair, watching Pond Life in one go, is a much better idea than the 5, nano episodes. If I had known I could get them in one video I would have done that. I suspect post AOTD its being shared in that form, as people learn about it.


its ok, but it deserved more. then as ive said before Matt Smith will never be as "socially popular" as David Tennant

The official figure will be interesting.


Red or Black as ever deservers far less than it gets.

Paralympics did well despite strong Saturday night scheule.

X-Factor that does normally grow thought out the series really isnt doing that this year.


a bit of good news

This weeks performance was not essentially a worse one than episode one because of the share. This idea that more people were watching television so obviously more people should have been watching The X Factor is utterly absurd and nonsensical. That's not how television works. Your argument is that The X Factor is having a bad year because more people are choosing to watch something other than The X Factor on Saturday night rather than fewer people are watching it year-on-year or week-on-week.

More over shares are meaningless when comparing year-on-year and arguably week-on-week. They fluctuate far too much and you aren't placing them in any meaningful context. Hypothetically lets say The X Factor got a 40% share one week and a 32% share the next week. What do you actually know about its performance? You know that 40% of the people watching television were watching The X Factor one week and that 32% were watching the following week. But since we don't know how many people were watching television on each week we have no idea how The X Factor actually performed. We've also given no account to how the run time and timeslot can impact upon the share nor how different events airing around a show can impact on the share.

The share drop from 40% to 32% could be because its airing at an earlier or later time, running for a shorter or longer period of time, airing opposite a major event or several events, gone from facing no competition to some competition or lots of competition. And the list goes on. The share doesn't actually tell you anything significant about the shows performance.

And using your theory we'd have to say that dropping 8 share points is bad regardless of the numbers. So lets say the 40% share equalled 8 million viewers but the 32% share equalled 8.5 million. So actually that would be week-on-week growth despite the drop in share. But as you've pointed out the growth in the actual audience wouldn't matter because its lost share points.

At the end of the day TXF is a talent contest. I can't understand why people obsess so much about this and BB, which is just a worn out reality show. In the past I noticed New Faces never attracted such obsessive, paranoid fans as TXF has.

I'm not trying to defend The X Factor, Red or Black or ITV though this post will cause certain people to think it irrespective so I shan't spend any longer trying to say otherwise.

Really, I can't help feeling it's too early for "Autumn" to begin. This is reflected in disappointing, yet solid, overnight performances for The X Factor and Doctor Who this year. I'm not surprised ratings are lower, but it is disappointing to see audiences going down especially after the incredible audiences we saw during the Olympics.

It's a real shame, I feel, because both BBC One and ITV1 are launching some of their biggest returning shows as well as new stuff which looks pretty good on both sides. It's a shame things like Accused and Good Cop aren't pulling the numbers they really deserve (both are very good) on the BBC and we've already seen Doctor Who's 6.4m as a solid, but fundamentally low rating in the grand scheme of things. It remains one of the highest quality shows in telly.

ITV are criticised but they are being fairly bold in the next few weeks, launching many new dramas that all look to be fairly expensive. We have A Mother's Son, The Bletchley Circle and Mrs Biggs launching this week - with brand new British drama airing Monday-Thursday at 9pm. I'd argue that is ITV being bold, being original and trying.

Anyway, I think The X Factor issue would have been solved by starting the series later in the year, halving the auditions by putting two auditions episodes a week, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. I'd have done that, and put Friday's 7.30pm Corrie on Sundays, moving Emmerdale's 8.00pm Thursday episode to that slot freed up on Friday at 7.30pm where Corrie vacates. Basically making Emmerdale an hour at 7pm on Fridays. Would free up Thursday 8pm slot too.

By doing double weekends of auditions, they'd have started later in the year (when the days get darker and summer's truly gone), had higher ratings, and the show would have had more momentum with the two episodes a week. Sundays always do well, so it was a mistake to not consider this approach for the auditions.

Anyways, ITV made that call and the average success of XF is surely going to be monitored very careful by a nervous executive. Maybe it'll recover as the clocks go back and people flock back to their tellies during the cold autumn nights. Maybe it really is the end for the show, and we're now left with wondering: how long?

Either way, and call me a killjoy, but I'm happy for summer to end now. I want the days to get a bit shorter. I want the air to feel a bit crisper. And I want the nights to draw in sooner, and the ratings to go up sooner!

I'm a sucker for British TV - whatever channel - doing well. So I guess all I'm saying is: yes, ratings have been disappointing (across the board) since the Olympics ... but, summer's not over yet. When the autumn kicks in properly, everything will be back to normal. But which shows will this transition phase damage the most?

Agree with this, must say part of me sat there last night at times just thinking "why is he doing an impersonation of Peter Davison? I rather watch him try to be himself" But c'est la vie.

AlexiR, both figures should be used together to analyse a programme's performance. Just using the raw numbers alone doesn't take account of changes in the total audience. Using either stat, this weeks XF performance was down, when, IIRC, it normally rises as the show progresses. That is surely disappointing to its fans.

K

BBC should take advantage from this and make Strictly clash with X Factor.

There are indeed many factors that affect ratings: however as I said the share strips out the weather effect so a better comparison can be made. Do you agree that my example of comparing week 1 with week 3 of TXF shows that the share is a better guide than the raw figure when weather, and the total TV audience, changes significantly? I would say the raw figure and the share should be looked at together.

Your example of a show going from 8m/40% to 8.5m/32% would mean an increase in total TV audience of 6.6m. If TXF could only capture 0.5 million out of 6.6 million extra viewers, then ITV would wonder why and be rather concerned. Yes they'd have an increase in raw figures which is better than a fall, but the drop in share would be very worrying, just like their 8-point drop in share year-on-year for last night's show is worrying them, I'm sure. A fall in market share for their top product would worry any company.

I confess I was way to focused on the JLC character to pay enough attention to Matt Smiths performance, (never wanted a girl to call me Nina before, even if its pretty much a anagram of actual real human name), but I never had a problem with it. Seemed to be his normal Doctor self.


wow, IT will not be happy on Monday morning. This thread seems to be finally getting what its always wanted.

Plays to what I was saying earlier. Those who view XF as event tv (& there are clearly huge nos. that still do) will turn in whatever the weather etc. but those who just put it on as a bit of light entertainment when sitting in front of tv are starting to not do so. Even if tv is on they will look for something else.