The X Factor has one more chance to save itself - series ten. It doesn't need to hit the heights of 2010; no one expects it to. But if it can stabilise itself, even at the level it's at now, it'll be around for a few more years. If it suffers another decline next year, though, I think Simon may pull it before ITV get the chance to.

Interesting. So even though X Factor towers over others in the ad friendly groups, as it's down ITV won't be able to charge as much as they could be able to?

Deserved poor ratings for TXF. The show is incredibly dull this year, and viewers are rightly finding other stuff to watch/do. I used to be a big fan of the show, but this year has been dire stuff to watch.

Nothing like hedging your bets then!

The only problem with signing an indie star to TXF would be the indie attitude that anything other than indie rock is rubbish. Jarvis Cocker would go on and just rubbish the acts, or send Simon Cowell a sarcastic reply. I think the real way to save the show is to ditch Gary Barlow and make Cheryl Cole a huge offer.

Unfortunately not many peaks have been reported by DS, where I got the figures from. They may have been reported by FMs in earlier posts, though.

why would an indie star, sign for the X-Factor, it would kill their creditability. Even if their fans gave them a chance, unless they put forward lots of indie acts, the fans will continue to brand them a sell out. X-Factor wont tolerate a load of guitar bands, with ideas of musical creativity.

Getting rid of Lucy, was probably an inside plot

TXF falls again! This is getting serious now. I never thought it would go below 8m for the live shows. The 2011 series looks like a huge sucess now comparing it to this years dire numbers. The sharp decline this year has been crazy really. I don't think anyone predicted this a few months ago...

Try Broadcast, they should have them.

We'll know things are going wrong when the redtops ignore it or rubbish it like the Sun did with BB in the late noughties. I still think the show has life in it, but I think it will go in a few years time, a shame as this year's has been good.

Kind of, it's more complicated than that.

ITV takes a huge amount of revenue at this time of year leading into Christmas and for young & hw+ch advertisers X-Factor is key to delivering the ratings they are entitled to. With X-Factor down quite a bit there are less ratings to go around so they've got to deliver it elsewhere but when X-Factor does 20+ 16-34 ratings and they probably don't have another programme that does more than 10 that's tough to do. So they might even not be able to give the advertiser what they are owed.

Also X-Factor is such a big programme that people will pay premiums for it, ABC1 advertisers will buy it against 16-34s, films and album releases will approve money in the week of transmission to access it but if it's doing a third less ratings all of things become less valuable to ITV and maybe advertisers won't be so quick to agree to it anyway.

Last nights episode was good. Nicole has been brilliant at the live shows IMO.

The problem its got is that no one seems to care about it anymore. Everyone I speak to about it now pretty much hates it - and this is from people who used to love it. I don't know who they'd win back those viewers.

You could always do it; using the shortcut to access Broadcast becomes tiresome very quickly.

I think Noel doesn't really much care for cred any more, he admit's to liking the show, his children watch it. His fans are so hard-core he could probably commit murder and they'd still slavishly follow him. Jarvis doesn't seem to have much of a music career now. Nicky Wire is also someone who doesn't project a cool image.

but yeah your probably all right, bit too radical.

I think reducing the running time, the endless ad breaks and the OTT announcements would help. In terms of production values the show is one of the most lavish and a nod to ITV's variety heritage. However, like all shows it has a shelf life and rumours are flying around the net that it will be cancelled next year.
Yet this series has been quite good and it would be a huge blow to ITV if Cowell pulled the plug.

If the day ever came for the BBC to take commercials would advertisers be interested in Strictly with its mostly old skewing audience I wonder.

Doesn't look so far that advertisers are backing away from The X Factor, but the deals they strike will be different.

The running time/endless ad breaks are no different to 2010 - it's just the show has been shifted slightly later because of Strictly's move.

The OTT announcements are one thing which do work IMO; I've watched the US version and the lack of announcements make it seem ever so flat in comparison.

It's very ABC1 so yes they would want it, Downton has the same kind of age skew to Strictly and they love that.

X-Factor dropping ratings will mean ITV's share of commercial audiences will be down this year so advertisers may take money out of ITV when contracts are renegotiated going into 2013. They may also not be able to charge such big premiums for the semis and the final that they have in the past.

IIRC Strictly is still number two for most weeks in the demo behind The X Factor so I think advertisers would be interested. I think the BBC and ITV would come to a private agreement regarding the scheduling of the two, though, rather than the show with the upper hand airing wherever it wants to and the lower show having to work around it.

Yeah the show is no longer than before. Its the end time that are different. A few weeks ago ended at 10.35. Utter madness!

And yeah I love the big intro and OTT announcements. Although there was quite a few times during the auditions/bootcamp/judges houses phase that the Peter Dickson voiceover wasn't used at all which was very strange and largely inconsistent IMO.

Further to my earlier post, I should also add that Merlin is timeshifting about 0.5m more than in 2010. All in all, it's doing pretty well, although perhaps it should be managing 6m considering the state that its big competitor is in.

IMO, they should have taken a risk and thrown the show out at 8pm. Yes, there would have been a clash with Strictly but I think it would have rated better than a 10.35pm finish and any decline could have been explained away by the clash.

I know they said before the lives that the two shows wouldn't clash but it's hardly helping the viewer when one finishes ridiculously late.

Yeah they should have stuck to their guns and just had a set 8pm start time and just see how it went. Last night as well there was a 5 minute gap after SCD finished until TXF started. They should have scheduled it 20.15-22.00 last night.

I don't get the point of the five minute gap at all; it allowed viewers to float away.

Then again, as the BBC seem be pushing the ratings angle for Strictly this year, I'm surprised they're not moving the start time later as the show becomes shorter. If they want to boost the ratings this series, which they seem to, that would be the best way to do it.

I wonder if the BBC will be as forceful with The Voice this year or will they try and stay away from Britain's Got Talent as it's in a healthier state than The X Factor? And if they are as forceful will ITV back down like they have with the autumn battle?

You say it will be less crowded,however we still dont know wants happening to Ripper street.Will the beeb try and nick the sunday 9pm slot and run it with call the midwife.Of course then itv could put it on Monday,but that would leave sunday very weak.