That wouldn't have gone down well, enough people overly criticise ITV's coverage of football as it is (mainly due to the adverts) without reducing the length of the coverage just so they can get a higher headline rating figure

They should just put half an hour of build-up on ITV4, and advertise it in the same trailer as the match, as with XF and Xtra Factor. 15 minutes of post-match analysis is not too bad.

I think X Factor riding a wave created by Britains Got Talent which has reinvigorated the brand this year and I think more of its potential audience are spending Saturday nights in in these cash strapped times.
Fantastic night for ITV, all BBC1 shows after Merlin were on a hiding to nothing. I was a little surprised that the England Game didnt average more and peak higher to be honest. I think there are a section of the public who dont think ITV and sport go together and I bet there would have been a better average had it been on BBC1.
If the Beeb are serious about Saturdays then they should run SCD later and overlap X Factor by half an hour or so. I think X Factor will lose viewers marginally over the next few weeks as if the format has any weekness its in the repetitive nature of the live format. That said I think this is X Factors year.

I think the wave started long before BGT though. Even DOI performed soundly above what it did last year and we had tosh like The One and Only getting 6m.

Maybe Friday's economic down turn did make people think twice last night but I'm sure TXF played some sort of factor in it.

Is Britannia high gonna be a tv version of high school musical and camp rock?

Or a decent comprehensive school drama?

Does it look like a comprehensive school drama?

Week 41 Shares - Australian Networks

Seven 30.7% (+0.8%)
Nine 25.9% (+0.2%)
Ten 19.5% (+0.4%)
ABC 18.7% (-0.7%)
SBS 5.2% (-0.3%)

Not seen it, just caught it mentioned by itv continuity a few times and heard it mentioned on here.

Should have done better......

x-factor did really well. the England Game could have done better imo. Merlin is still going strong.

does look a bit like a spin off tv series of HSM.. evern has the same font in the logo and everything lol

X Factor will suffer next week, possibly alot, due to the 45 minute overlap. It's not an ideal scenario at all. Merlin will take a hit as well and I think Strictly will lose momentum when X Factor starts halfway through as we've seen when they have clashed so far this year (although it will surely win the 45 minute overlap).

But Family Fortunes seems to benefit hugely from the lead-in. It'll be interesting to see how Harry Hill does at 6.55pm next week against SCD. And last night, I think it was probably more the football hurting SCD than the early start. It's not as though either the share or the peak were that impressive.

X Factor appears to have remained steady throughout, instead of the usual situation where the peak is a good bit above the average.

I'm surprised at how well Strictly Come Dancing held up against the football, particularly as the football kicked off well before SCD started. Even more surprised when you consider the unusually warm weather might have tempted a few people out for the early evening.

I think BBC One can relax over Merlin now. It seems it will deliver Robin Hood sized audiences throughout the autumn.

It's a bit of a worry that they now only have one popular lottery format (In It To Win It), though, and Casualty is a bit jaded now. You also have to question the wisdom of a one-day-later narrative repeat in primetime.

I made my annual toe-dip into The X Factor last night, when I watched the results show, except the very end (Which girl group got knocked out?) I wanted to see how strong the last twelve acts were. I'd say nine were good, two more were okay, and one made me laugh out loud! Strangly, the one I thought worst actually avoided being in the bottom two.

ITV1 had a great night with The X Factor and Football though BBC One held up well with Merlin and SCD. BBC two's schedules did well as usual as did Five. Channel 4 did poorly but they have two terrestrial film premieres next Saturday which could do well for them.

I think the terrestrials will do very well tonight as there something for everyone. Stephen Fry in America will do well against A Touch of Frost and I think BGTPF will pull in a decent audience for Channel 4 as will Ghost on Five.

Bad Lashes got kicked out. Worst was Daniel, the chubbier Steve Brookstein. He's terrible, but gets through because his wife died. Sorry to be blunt, but it's true. Because of this, Dannii Minogue claims everything he "sings" is with emotion or from the heart. Basically none of the other contestants apparently can sing as emotionally or closer to the heart than him because they haven't had the misfortune of a loved one dying.

Ah, thank you, Polonius. I thought the two girl groups were decent enough to deserve to get through.

And, to keep this on-topic, excellent ratings for the show last night!

Good post & I agree with it all.

Yes, BBC1 seem to have found a solid hit in Merlin, which is pulling in Robin Hood/Primeval style figures.

I'm sure Casualty held up better than this against XF last year & it does seem to show weakening signs. Personally I think it's not as good as it used to be. It needs a longer break than 1 month aswell imo.

Also I really can't see the theory behind showing effectively an import in virtually the same primetime slot 2 days a week

Personally I thought most of the XF acts were rubbish to put it nicely, there were some which shone out, but I can't understand why people think this years selection is so much better. After the poor quality last night I can see a drop off next week, following interest at the beginning.

Also probably not for here but the XF is turning into a drama big style-DEADLOCK last night made me LOL The way the set changed was hilarious and I even heard some of the audience laughing. What's the betting in next week they say at the beginning ''over 11 million of you watched last week-the biggest show of the day by milliooonnnns!!''

The intros to contestants this year, with all the lightning-fast cuts and apocalyptic music then the full name of the contestants zooming in and that caricature voice being all like "BAAAAAD LASHESSSSS!!!!!!!" is all a bit silly really -but that's the X Factor!

And the start with all the whooshes and booms and bams and helicopters and fast and slow motion all chopped into 2 second segments and edited together. "LAST WEEK!" (boom!) "TWELLLLLLVE MILLLLIONNN PEOPLE SAW ONEEE HUNDREDDD AND FIFTYYY THOUSAAAANND PEOPLE AUDITION" (boom boom!) "IT'S TIME" (boom whoosh!) "TO FACE...!!!" (bang bang bang boom!!!!) "THAAAAA MYOOOOOUSICCCCCC!!!!!!!!" (BOOM!!) etc.

Haha you've got it spot on Polonius But actually it's one of the reasons I still like the XF in all honesty...and to keep this ratings related I think it's why other people do aswell.

My personal fave moment was when Sharon stormed off last year and said ''that's it...I'm gone''

I did notice already yesterday one of the contestants was mentioning viewing figures-10 million he said.

Simon also said "gone from 50 people in a bar to 12 million people watching The X Factor" relating to someone.

Austin Healy on SCD gave it a rather modest 6 million.

It was funny when Jeremy Clarkson & Simon Cowell were chatting about ratings when he was on Top Gear and Simon Cowell was boasting about how XF gets more ratings. I can just see Simon logging on at 11am to read DS. He really does seem obsessed with ratings

Piers Morgan seems obsessed with them as well. He mentioned it quite a lot during Britain's Got Talent and often in the articles and blogs he writes.

I think In It To Win It is supposed to be coming back when Who Dares Wins ends it series, so will we end up with a few weeks of a Dale Winton double bill on Saturday nights?

By my reckoning, there won't be any room to repeat the final Little Britain USA because of the Festival of Remembrance, unless I've got my dates wrong!

And one Sunday in December, there's going to be a problem with the Strictly Come Dancing results, because of the Sports Personality of the Year programme. They shifted SCD results to 6.15 last year, which was only 30 minutes earlier than normal, but 6.15 would be 2 hours earlier this year. Unless they run SCD at 7.15 by having Sports Personality from 8 to 10pm instead of 7 to 9pm. But that's something ITV need to think about if they're going to have Britannia High at 7pm on Sundays.

Ohh yeah I remember that. I think he thinks the reason BGT performs well is because of him & his Sandbanks show performed well which just adds to his already huge ego. It would be funny if his show flopped, just to see the look on his face