If 9-10 million people are happy watching recycled ideas on TV, and the most outrageously staged TV you're ever going to see, then X Factor will just keep going.

Sure, we can argue the show is getting worse and worse but as far as ITV are concerned, they're getting viewers and revenue from advertisers. I mean, how much did ITV pocket for broadcasting 30 seconds of Adele? Hmm...

X Factor has become a parody of itself. It's incredibly sad and disappointing to see as up until 2013 I liked watching X Factor. Last year was the first time I was really underwhelmed with the entire series and the 2014 highlights were few and far between.

Listen, I'm not denying that X Factor has lost viewers over the years and is a load of old tosh, but for the week ending October 18 it was the second highest rated show on ITV after downtown Abbey. Viewership is down across the board but with ratings like that they will still make money. As I said, phone voting is huge on X Factor so Itv will be making money on that and they will also with it being itvs second highest rated show they can charge a premium to advertisers.

Comparisons with Survivor aren't really valid. Back then Coronation St and Eastenders got 15-16 million viewers. They now get under 7 million each.

Times have changed. You also have to factor in on demand viewing as well as online viewing.

Whilst true it's still a problem. Advertising makes up a huge slab of ITV's income and if 'live' viewers are falling the amount they can make from advertisers during the show will fall too. Eventually it might not be a case of 'well it still pulls more viewers than X or Y', and they may simply decide that it's a show with falling advertising revenues and they might well decide to constantly try to revamp it or try something new.

On the overlap on Sunday between Strictly and the X-Factor, despite the fact Strictly is taped and you could probably find the result through a 5 second twitter search, X Factor got 4.9m. From a sponsors point of view if you're paying to advertise on a show that you expect to be getting around 8m viewers and you find out the bit you paid for was only watched by 4.9m vs Strictly's 8.8m you're not going to think "Still, it's only behind Downton Abbey" you're going to be pissed that you paid so much and didn't get the exposure you were expecting.

This is where the pressure is going to come from: advertisers. If every time Strictly goes head to head you lop off 2 million from your potential audience you've paid premium rate to advertise to then they're not going to stand for it and will either not advertise or, more likely, demand a cheaper rate, which will start alarm bells ringing at boardroom level.

On the wider point I'd be very sceptical of claims made recently that X-Factor gets "2 or 3 million" viewers watching on catch-up. ITV, a commercial company, has regularly been getting 3 million extra viewers for it's flagship Saturday night entertainment show and they just happened to forget to ever mention this before?

If it looks and smells like bullshit, it probably is.

This is why it will stay . I actually liked the auditions this year, less novelty acts and the judges appeared more constructive, but 6 chair challenge was brutal and uncomfortable to watch and then judges houses . It was a complete farce , i was embarrassed for X factor. It could be so much better