My bold. 1 million drop = adverts.

Also, you've missed off:

20:40 - 8.78m (37.7%) <-- adverts

And:

21:55 - 9.68m (40.0%)

On another note I see BBC One are trailing Tuesday's 'One Show' which launches their Christmas presentation! A Christmas party is promised, live from Television Centre. Intriguing...

I think ITV will be happy if it beats 2008's peak of 14.6m but I'm not sure how likely that is.

Of course it'll be up on yesterday which was up 1.5m from the week before. But that rating for yesterday, we should have seen weeks ago, when the live shows started.

If we take that 9.3m average for last night, I would add at least another 3m for tonight, so we could be looking at 12m and a 14m peak at least.

Xtra Factor still got it's highest Saturday audience in a while.

They're only only allowed six ad breaks in a two hour slot, that would make it seven.

Txf will win tonight, it's the final and BBC 1 is hardly competing with the Ancient Rome thing which will get around 2.5m, and Strictly fans being caught out by the early start.

I do think BBC 1 should have stuck to 7.20, and let ITV work round that.

Ah, in which case I've put in one advert too many. (I didn't watch it - I was guessing )

Unless it's some old grannies favourite, these music specials never seem to do terribly well. I doubt even a One Direction special would get over 3m. There seems to be a very low ceiling for this type of show.

I wonder if our old friend GeorgeS has realised that his favourite highbrow magazine show is being given over to promoting the BBC's festive shows and launching a new channel ident.

But advertisers will care that XFs audience is down about 5m from a couple years ago, also meaning that the young audiences their commercials reach out to is smaller than previous years.

Also let's not forget, that XF only managed that 9.3m against National lottery awards for the most part. That's the poorest show it has been against all series. If BBC had shown something half decent, it wouldn't have got 9m.

Anyone got the list handy of the current top 20 (or 30?) most watched shows of the year?

The McFly Show - Demographic Breakdown
Age 4-15 - 358k (18.0%)
Age 16-24 - 181k (9.1%)
Age 25-34 - 280k (14.0%)
Age 35-44 - 275k (13.8%)
Age 45-54 - 386k (19.4%)
Age 55-64 - 306k (15.4%)
Age 65+ 209k (10.5%)

That's another way of saying it appealed to just about no one.

19:00 - 1.90m (8.1%)
19:05 - 1.84m (7.9%)
19:10 - 1.74m (7.4%)
19:15 - 1.85m (7.9%)
19:20 - 1.92m (8.1%)
19:25 - 1.82m (7.7%)
19:30 - 1.96m (8.1%)
19:35 - 2.00m (8.2%)
19:40 - 2.04m (8.3%)
19:45 - 1.97m (7.9%)
19:50 - 2.90m (12.1%)

Again, another way of saying it appealed to just about no one...

Turns out Itv1 did beat BBC1 in peak time, just, according to ds. But not something to celebrate about. Paul miller says XF rated 24pct lower than last year, although by my calculations it was half of that?

And we all know what happens at parties at TVC - I seem to remember Jimmy Savile had a few

Strictly faces Coronation Street tonight and will get over 9m judging by past form of Sunday clashes with Corrie. It's The X Factor final I think it'll be ahead and up on Saturday. But this is just a prediction of course.

Strange, there was definitely an article for the 7th December up on the site. Must've been taken down for some reason...

When you bear in mind the fact there was no advertising for the McFly Show the figure is not surprising, even more so when you remember what it was up against. I'm not too disappointed.

Is it wrong that I laughed? What were Strictly's demos by comparison?
Ain't that the truth! If 4 Seven is based on Twitter chatter there wouldn't be many Channel 4 shows on it.

ITV like doing these shows at Christmas where they think if they get young music stars they'll get lots of young people watching. Doesn't work. Justin Beiber is a global star and his special tanked. They'd be better off doing specials of The Chase.

Indeed as at least The Chase rated decently.

& I remember seeing them running trailers every ad break for that special as well, wasn't 1 for the McFly Show! I'm guessing thats because they only recorded it this week, but the opening would have been a brilliant trailer.

Would love to see them do another, so I hope the AI is good anyhow

I was wrong. Strictly doesn't face Corrie tonight but it is on 20 minutes earlier so that could impact the rating for it.

The Voice will also have to become stronger too though next year if it is to survive, its ratings along with production values were considerably lower than the X Factor towards the end of its run. The average for the series was massaged by a novel start. This show was bought by the BBC to be populist, it needs to deliver an audience.

Not too surprised by last night's ratings. That was around the average that I was expecting for the X Factor. I think it'll average around a million more tonight, taking it just above the 10m mark and I think we'll see a peak of 13m.

Strictly Come Dancing is doing brilliantly, as is Pointless Celebrities and Merlin.

That is probably on the ITV favoured measure, which obviously Paul ITVista Millar will prefer too.


A cheap shot and uncalled for.

Seems obvious to do a few more Chase specials for the weekends.

These youth orientated music specials can't draw flies. S Club's did okay but I don't think it went out after 7pm. The only special I can remember doing good business in primetime was An Audience With The Spice Girls.