Can we pin this post to the top of every page because there won't be a more revealing or interesting post made all day?

TXF peaked at 9pm with a figure smaller than six of the eight Strictly segments and proceeded to lose a million viewers over the following hour. The breakdown for Strictly is much easier on the eye with relentless growth up to the penultimate full quarter, then when TXF came on only a slight dip of less than 4%.

So TXF starts to lose viewers after 9PM. Hardly breaking news is it?! The same thing has happened for the last few years.

It remained bang on stable week-on-week with another 7.7m rating - and it finished later this week too. I think once the clashes reduce and the shows get shorter it should build further. Excellent for Strictly.

Channel 4 probably edged it with +1, but the spaghetti western went on 50 minutes longer than Fast Five (the exact finish times were 11.30 and 12.20). The share tells the story there. Good performance by a classic.

Stable with a 10 minute smaller overlap is nothing to shout about.

The reforming of the panel was supposed to work ratings magic. An average of less than 8M at this stage of the competition is poor and proves it hasn't worked.

Don't get your hopes up for growth through the run. Wishful thinking IMO based on all available evidence.

This is the balance ITV need to figure out - even in the big years the peak was usually coming around 8.30pm-9.00pm. Audiences tail off into that 9pm hour. Strictly has positioned itself perfectly to grow into primetime whereas X Factor slides out of primetime.

Last week it did 7.5m in the second half hour against Strictly but the last half hour this week (9.50pm-10.20pm) was actually slightly lower than that (which I predicted based on last weeks figures up to 10pm).

The first 15 minutes were actually down a few thousand on the 7.30pm portion last week. Proving that the start will always be a bit slow regardless.

I suspect that Jonathan Ross starting at 9.50pm might have done quite a bit better as well.

Thanks for the breakdowns C14E. I have compared the breakdowns for last week to this week:

Strictly:
Between 6.30-7.30pm, it was up 6% compared to last week [8.2m v 8.7m]. Between 7.30-8pm last week against TXF it got 9.2m, this week against The Chase it got 9.9m, so it was up 9% for that half an hour. Between 8-8.15pm, last week it got 9.0m and this week it got 9.6m so it was up 7%. Based on that breakdown, it does appear SCD would've been up this week anyway as the first hour was up [non clash period for both weeks], but the 7.30-8pm was up more than the rest of the show due to no clash against TXF.

This thread this morning reminds me of an old 1980's advert. Does anyone remember the roll on deoderant advert that had the song "My mum's better than your mum, No, my mum's better than yours"?

Well, that's what it's like reading this thread this morning. We get the usual SCD beats XF stance from some and the now predictably pathetic booing from others because they take any attack or criticism on XF as if they own it! The simple fact is this: SCD is comfortably and definitively beating XF on Saturday nights. Cowell has brought nothing to the show. If anything he is losing viewers on Saturdays. But, like last year, XF gains viewers on Sunday and edges SCD on Sunday nights to be top dog. This thread is increasingly becoming a case of dejavu.

The DW ratings were stable but disappointing although consolidated ratings are impressive. Casualty is down and no one watched Jonathan Ross. Pointless still pulls in the punters. That is basically a summary of last nights ratings.

Surely reduced ratings for the X Factor is good though? Once this current 3 year contract is up, it means Channel 5 can air it to one man and his dog on a Saturday night from Autumn 2017

See, the is the thing we'll never truly know whether it's worked. Yes, it hasn't seen an uplift but maybe leaving last year's panel in place would have resulted in a heavier decline? The X Factor is fighting against ITV's overall issues as well as it's own - it's been an awful year for ITV ratings wise and richly deserved too. I just hope they bother to turn up in 2015.

Actually last year, Strictly Come Dancing beat XFactor on Sunday nights almost every week, with the few exceptions being when it faced Coro.

These long bloated shows have suffered over the years though. It had a 25-minute clash with Strictly and ended 20-minutes later than last week too. It's swings and roundabouts really. Do they clash with Strictly for longer or do they run it later, i.e. past 10PM which is far from ideal.

Yes - it's not posting the numbers they'd have probably hoped for - but I wonder where it would be if they hadn't brought Cowell/Cheryl back. Probably in a worse state I would imagine but we'll never know.

The average so far is 8.1m versus SCD's 8.4m. No show is going to last forever but because XF went so high in 2009/2010 every rating it's posted since looks disappointing. There's nothing more ITV can do about the situation now except just run with it. Also worth noting the Friday episodes have dented the series average. Factoring out those episodes the series would be at 8.4m - dead level with Strictly.

The evidence is there that XFactor rates about the same between 7.30-10pm [with a long SCD clash] as it does when airing at 8-10.20pm with a smaller clash. The bonus of airing it 7.30-10pm, from Itv's perspective, is that it dents SCD's average more as it limits the time scd has to build up its audience prior to XF commencing [only 60mins instead of 90mins of building up].

So if Itv used their brains, they would be scheduling TXF to start at 7.30pm every week where it would rate about the same as an 8pm start. But it would help close the gap on SCDs average due to limiting SCD's peak, and also boost the post XF show's figures due to that airing earlier. It's common sense, really. Ratings is not a dark art but Bergg doesnt know how to schedule properly these days.

Ratings for XF tomorrow morning could be interesting. Week 2 results last year dropped 600k from the first week. If it holds week on week then it will be level with last year after a series where Sundays have been way off the pace throughout. But if it mirrors last weeks drop it will be back to where it started (around 8.2m).

Also if Itv used their brains, instead of airing Youve Been Framed crap filler prior to Celebrity Chase, they should be airing Tipping Point prior to Celebrity Chase [even re-runs of it] which would sort of replicate their usual strong weekday afternoon schedule [shifted 2hours later] and almost certainly pull in a higher rating than Itv News/YBF does. It's common sense really, it's much harder to get an audience at 7pm if no one is watching the tv channel at 5-7pm. They need to have a decent tea-time audience going into primetime like BBC One does, but at the moment their ratings are dire in the 5-7pm period, so whatever is starting at 7pm probably has double the trouble trying to get an audience than a show airing in that slot on BBC One which has a 20%+ lead-in going into it.

I think it will be down on last Sunday. Last week the first 45-minutes posted just under an 8m average then it jumped crazy in the last 15-minutes to something like 10.5m IIRC and surely that was some of the DA audience tuning in as it ran 8.15-9.15pm last Sunday. We'll see though. Will be interesting.

To be fair that could be said of any day on here. I didnt think that there was that much of a problem between the 2 sides this morning - its certainly been worse.

Not constructive and doesn't add to the discussion (See posting tips).

For the record I've already said I hope that doesn't happen as singing shows have been done to death of late and the viewers need a break from them. I'm not sure it's all that likely anyway. Viacom's CEO seems more keen on building homegrown successes from scratch and playing them on their channels around the world. No hit show lasts forever, he sagely pointed out last week with regard to Big Brother, and never was a truer sentence said in television.


That's a good point. They might still be down y-o-y but we can't say comprehensively that they are in a worse position than they would have been had things remained the same. But it doesn't exactly bode well for next year, does it? Even if it ITV does get its act together with the rest of their output, and let's not forget this was a World Cup year. What can they do to manage declines in 2015? More of the same might not cut it but they've exploited obvious recovery options already.

So roughly the same share as Atlantis, but I bet that it timeshifts far better than Atlantis ever did,

We certainly know whether it's worked and it hasn't. They didn't bring Simon and Cheryl back just to halt the decline.

Why do you think they orchestrated a complete unnecessary clash with Strictly on the Friday night? What would be the point of them doing that if they didn't expect the series to have a bounce and be able to beat Strictly in a clash?

Doctor Who timeshifts like a demon but it's actual 'live' audience is low for Saturday night compared to other BBC1 shows in primetime on the night. It's quite weak really and I say that as a fan.

Indeed, even repeats of TP would work better. They should also be airing Celebrity Chase at 6pm on Sundays from next week as a lead-in to a new Bradley Walsh vehicle. Instead they'll show ITV News against Countryfile. They definitely don't help themselves.


Definitely, but they might as well show it elsewhere. I doubt Atlantis would get 4.7m without that Strictly lead-in. DW would do the same at 6pm in spring. It's a waste giving it such a big slot.


When the Friday shows went into the schedule they knew they wouldn't win but they still went with it. Suggesting that beating Strictly wasn't the only thinking behind it.

Doctor Who is paying for messing around with its format, the first half of the series, has seen Clara with one foot in the TARDIS, and one in a school, and im sorry to say it Danny, and the school does not improve the show one bit, its no accident the past two episodes Clara has been a full companion again, not having to be picked up at the start of the episode, and the show has been far better.

C14E, do you have the rating for C4 Racing yesterday please?

Champions Day really delivered what it said on the tin yesterday. What a finish between Noble Mission and Al Kazeem !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxbvMv-9Gxk

The obvious thing is to replace Mel with Dannii, bringing the 2010 panel back in full. But personally I hardly think Mel's an issue.

Dermot's future could be in the balance if they elect to try a more comedic host in the role. Who is the big question. Not serving tripe up like last night (song choice wise) will help too though having a strong opening show didn't seem to help it much.

The other thing is a scheduling change to take it away from Strictly which is a key issue now it's struggljng, relatively speaking.

Saying all this a three percent year on year decline in fine. A ten percent decline is slightly more concerning and needs to be worked on. I don't think the week-on-week figure will look pretty tonight.

I don't think that was Simon Cowell's scheduling decision - ITV knew it would be hit there and aired it anyway, arguably hurting momentum. Stupid scheduling as they already knew the series wasn't 'bouncing' at that point.