I totally agree- he came across very patronising as if none of the public had the slightest clue at all about anything television related.

Yes, he's saying that overnights are increasingly irrelevant, but he would say that, wouldn't he? If The X Factor had launched this year with 14 million he wouldn't give a damn about consolidated figures. He's clutching at straws.

Simon is just making excuses.

ITV Player, ITV2 repeats etc were around in the show's hey day.

XF lost too many viewers in a short time period for it to be down to a shift towards catch-up. Some might have gone there but not enough for he and ITV to be satisfied.

Are there any stats to back up his point i.e. that the viewing figures for the ITV2 screenings and ITV Player numbers are up by a significant amount? (We're talking millions)

It's important for ITV as an ad-funded channel that as many tune in to the original screening of XF as possible.

But for SC to say it's doing as well as last year is a lie - he can't possibly know that yet, and of course even with consolidation it's highly unlikely to make up the overnight shortfall.

Do people seriously expect him to say "Yes the ratings are awful and nobody cares anymore"? Of course he's defending them. He wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't.

ITV's payday loan doc must have suffered then and BBC2 was second to BBC1 last night.

ITV well under 2m all evening in a particularly horrific Tuesday. These exclude HD but no way is that going to make this set of figures respectable:

Dinosaur Britain: 1.40m / 7.0%
Cash in Hand Payday Loans: ~1.17m
News at Ten: 1.17m / 6.9%

There is a chance that with it being a Bank Holiday that the consolidated figures will rise, as people are away and catch up over the week. However, for him to get an additional 2.5 million viewers would be quite an achievement especially when you consider where the show was last year.

I think this weekend will show just where TXF is standing. Saturday will record a blip due to Strictly but the Sunday show will be where the most telling figures will come. If TXF fails to lift on 6th September, then invite Mr Cowell back and talk about the final figures on the Tuesday, I think he will be in his volcano lair stroking a white pussy

Also, Dancc, is the CBB figure with +1 I'm guessing (the 1.4m reported by Overnights), shame!

As for ITV, Jeez that is terrible! ITV must have been the lowest rated show at 9pm, but Tuesday and all, not surprising!

Yep, it looks like it was BBC1, BBC2, C4, C5 and ITV in last place! They're not having a great week are they?

I would argue that ITV have more pressing problems than XF, like how they attract their core audience back.....

....unless of course they're all watching on that think called "catch up"...!!

Without Emmerdale to hold up ITV last night, it would have been embarrassing - well a little more embarrassing that it was.

What is the official definition of catch-up?

Sky plussing and watching later, ITV+1, ITV Player.

On the plus side, the evening as a whole collapsed so much that News at Ten made the ITV top 3.

Well of course he is going to defend and spin and thats fine but as Neil says to say its doing as well as last year looks like a big fat lie, doesnt it?

See - there is always a silver lining !!

You know the what the ITV audience is by checking their most popular page of ITV player.

It's usually Corrie, Emmerdale and the rest of the shows are from ITV2 and ITV Be.

Yet in the featured tab (where ITV push shows themselves) are the ones no one watches like BBQ Champ, Dinosaur Britain, and Flockstars.

The figure I have for CBB excluding +1 is 1.44m (6.9%).

Oh OK, brilliant. It maybe beat the night before then if it got over 150k on +1 as the night before got 1.43m excluding.

One of the main reasons why sitcoms had short runs in Britain was because one or two writers wrote them. Only Fools and Horses was just John Sullivan, Stephie was Gallon & Simpson so they did 6/8 at a time alongside other projects. America had 8/10 writers on a sitcom/drama so could have 20+ episodes a series.

'Allo 'Allo had the longest series ever for a British sitcom when series 5 running from Autumn 1988 to Winter 1989 had 26 episodes. They were all around the 25 minute mark to be shown in America and brought some extra writers in for it.

There's no official definition but my point is that the term "catch-up" is widely used. In my experience people use it to mean all of those things, perhaps not so much +1 though.

Not sure if you are being ironic here … but I'm not sure it is.

I was initially sceptical about DW's falling overnights - but it's proved itself fairly capable of performing pretty well once the consolidated figures are added in. And that's before iPlayer viewings are added on.

TXF is a different beast. It's directed much more at getting a water cooler audience and an instant response. All the talk of a bank holiday weekend is nonsense. GBBO has premiered in August, at a time when viewing figures should be down across the board, and got some amazing ratings. TXF should have been at least close to that, especially given all the hype the show has had.

I agree that it's too soon to write off TXF - Cowell and ITV will doubtless be in crisis meetings to work out what to do next - but there are some basic credibility issues at stake … and featuring a girl group from the Philippines who already have a record deal with Sony (the label with which Cowell is associated) just looks dodgy.

Ah, we spoke too soon, Salv! Looks like CBB can remain on the right side of 1.5m for more than one night!

Question is, can it beat the 1.59m from Monday night to continue an actual rise in the CBB ratings?

ED 5.83m (30.0%) including +1
EE 4.56m (22.0%) BBC3 886k (5.1%)

Clicky for the soap ratings - although the headline of 6.5 million viewers is not correct - Emmerdale had 5.61 and an additional 223k

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/ne...pn7AQ60bJqI55d

Main DS report - http://m.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a6...pn7DWI411fGdsM

1.62m (7.8%) including +1 for CBB.