There is always some crossover with audiences. Strictly/X Factor,Bake Off/Corrie, EastEnders/Emmerdale, big sport with British interest/any other show.

Total TV audience, first Sat in October

.................19:45...................20:00
2014........21.8m..................23.6m
2015........22.2m.................23.6m

It does look embarassing and ITV now have a very expensive tournament, which was going to be the big event on the channel this year, they have to show for another month that will rate as badly as their Tuesday night offerings. Also the final is at 4.00, which will dent the audience more as it's being shown against Final Score and Soccer Saturday.
Rugby union in England,is far less popular than football and had this been a vital football match for England last night, then 20 million would have been watching.

Yes they were inevitably going to get some very good ratings pitching England into peak primetime and there have been a couple of brilliant peaks, but overall very disappointing and very bad luck if we are being honest.
Fascinating to see how SCD/DW works next week against what has become purely a game for whoever has a ticket and bothers to turn up and people who know the players (even if that stretches things a touch )
SCD is at its best from week 3 through Halloween so we will see whether it has a spurt. Not too bad for BBC1 everything considered.
A real meeting of beasts tonight-if I was the BBC I would have tried to engineer a schedule with SCD starting at 7.00.

You seriously think it had not occurred to ITV England might go out in the first round ?

The England team may perform better if it was on the BBC, As for ITV could they not move primetime matches to ITV4 outside Tuesday flopzone? Final will be fine on the main channel as that is on a time of day when its not much of a problem.

Ho ho, I think even if it was on Sky with their huge budgets. a poor team will always lose. Yet it does leave ITV in a difficult situation, even more if Wales and Scotland go out in the next round, they now have to show a tournament which is only of interest to hardcore rugby fans. ITV 4, which is the home of minor sport, could be a better idea for a quarter final with two foreign teams, but would the IRB allow this?

How does this compare to previous years?

oh I don't know, what with the Haka, a little like a macho Pasodoble?

You know people were watching rugby when Strictly tops the iPlayer chart for a few hours instead of Doctor Who.

Yes I did. It was a light hearted remark. I think I should quote to you the tv advert that the late Michael Winner did. Seems rather appropriate.

ITV's 60th year gets worse. Strictly v X Factor ratings are an exciting thought tonight.

Why are we assuming that ratings for the RWC are suddenly going to fall off a cliff now England aren't in it? Yes there won't be any massive numbers but the non-England games have done well enough up until now, so no reason why that won't continue. A lot of it has done better than normal ITV primetime which is sub 2m at 9pm.

As for Strictly v X Factor, not exciting at all. The BBC fans will build it up as a big deal when Strictly will win comfortably which you can see coming from a mile off. As we've seen recently, X Factor jumps at 8pm so clearly the 7pm slot isn't the best for it anyway.

They're probably wise to avoid the inevitable squeals about dirty tricks. They have moved it five minutes earlier than last year but we won't quibble over that.

Sadly it has not been a great year for the commercial giant. Although we do have a few shows to look forward to this Autumn what with Jekyll and Hyde.

My prediction and I could be completely wrong would be hovering around the 4 to 5 million mark in primetime? The final should be higher.

Yes 4-5m is perfectly acceptable when the demos are so good.

Solid if unspectacular for Strictly and versus a year ago the comparison isn't great considering the rugby effect was probably quite minimal. Even so, another great show last night. These mammoth 125-minute shows at the start of the series are possibly quite a big commitment for viewers. Hopefully it will grow next week.

DW level with last week then - expected, given how it rated last week against the RWC. I thought the England match would have rated higher than 8m though.

As for tonight. SCD will obviously beat XF. I can see XF been as low as 6m exc +1.

Looking at the breakdown posted up thread, when Strictly and the rugby were clashing, around 16m (70%) were watching either BBC or ITV (timeshift viewers or not). Christmas aside, that is unheard of these days.

and that's the problem isn't it? all hopes on just one show that no one has seen yet? going by past series type shows on ITV and timeslot, I would say quite probably that this will flop.

You need to get out more.

Says the person who picks out everyone of my posts.

I don't have those figures, sorry.

ITV still have the pairing of TXF and DA to cheer them up. I know both shows are down, but 7-8 million is still very good. Also there's IAC next month, which will probably defy the odds and get 8 million a night.
Yet it is worrying for ITV this year. They started out badly with a terrible revival of Stars In Their Eyes and will probably end the year seeing BBC One attracting 12 million viewers to see in the new year. Very little outside of their big raters has done much this year.
BBC One OTOH seems to have been strong all year. Their successful year kicked off with TV and this week expect to see 12 million to tune into GBBO's final and next month The Apprentice starts. Except on Mondays and sometimes Sundays, every night seems to belong to BBC One now.

I don't think any of them will reach the final, though. Probably just as well it's an early kick-off.