Maybe it'll air the year after the Gary Barlow thing, and this "popstars finding new co-stars" will be new series/franchise for Q1. If they differentiate it enough from traditional singing contests then it might actually work. It could also make The Voice struggle by hoovering up older viewers.

I would have expected something much classier than the Spice Girls though. Take That is way better, more like it.

Bottom of the barrell scraping..................They should have kept hold of TVUK.

It doesn't work like that. If there were 20m watching a channel for three minutes in the 8pm hour and 20m in the 9pm hour, it doesn't mean they're the same 20m.

You need to get a reach figure for the evening, and it will be a lot, lot more than 20m.

Yes, it will be difficult to make year on year comparisons for a few weeks (after next week) as the schedules were different. Those 2 hour Sunday shows were actually probably the high point of last year's run and this year's series average might compare a bit less favourably because of the additional Saturday shows. But we'll see. I'm quite interested to see how they schedule it, how keen they are to avoid Strictly overlaps and the length of the shows.

It got 7.33m (30.9%) last year for the week 3 Sunday show.

No! Don't do it!

Will it be called 2 Become 1?

It is far better than anything else but let's not rewrite history. It was Simon and Louis who continually compared viewing figures with SCD so the media jumped onboard listening to their opinions. It's carried on since then though Simon and Louis seem to have stopped talking about it.

That'll be the 15 minute breakdown.

Well I guess you would have a boys contest first for Take That and then girls for Spice.
If they go for similar ages then it would be catering for older viewers I would of thought.

Maybe they were watching the Paralympics instead.

Except now it's Craig Revel-Horwood making much more snide remarks about the ratings.

I wish he'd stop doing that now.

Surely you should have said 'Stop right now, thank you very much'?

How did AYBS and Goodnight Sweetheart consolidate?

Such as? I haven't seen him say anything that could be considered any harsher than what Cowell and Walsh were putting about when XF was at its peak. And after years of it from those two it could be argued that someone from SCD sniping back now the tables have turned is expected.

Not too bad for TXF. I was hoping it would have be a bit closer to 8m - say 7.7m or 7.8m which makes it look a bit better. Hopefully it can hang on to most of those viewers tonight.

Okay for Newzoids. Shame it's not doing a bit better. 3.5m would be good for it. And it's actually a pretty decent show. Missed for the series but have been watching this one and I am enjoying it. Much better slot IMO than last year.

Well if it had never been started in the first place.......

I'm not attempting to rewrite history...

Also, let's remember how XF was thrashing Strictly back in '10.

I would have done if I was quicker!

X Factor was ahead of Strictly partly in 2008 then 2009 to most of 2011. So around 4 out of nearly 12 years. But a very high rating 4 years.

That's about where I expected for X Factor. I would describe it as a solid rating all things considered. Hopefully it can stay above 7 million tonight and not drop too much.

I think Go For It is a great show, really fun harmless 60 minutes of TV. It'll never be the centre piece of an evening, but I think it's a nice 'warm up' show to start the night off. It's a shame it's not doing better, but it seems so much tougher now to draw a significant audience into early evening. It seems the big audience will only turn up to the centre piece, and that's it. A lot harder to keep viewers hooked to an all evening schedule on one channel. I would give Go For It another chance though, Stephen Mulhern is at perfect ease on the show and it's a nice easy format to follow and very entertaining too!

Newzoids is good too, but isn't really catching on. It'll be nice to see it make some gains, ITV have at least made the effort to make this a hit by promoting it well and giving it the X Factor lead in this time.

Do we think the BBC will put The Great Christmas Bake Off on Xmas Day?

If so it's almost certain the schedule this year will be:



If it's Midwife as usual it'll almost certainly be



It would be nice if the Beeb split EastEnders again... but it's been so long since they did.

Either or. It is a strong line up. Would prefer the Option 1 as CTM should go to Boxing Day.

That was my point.

XF still has the crown the for highest rating episodes.

Just for interest, I thought Strictly was faultering in 2009? Or have I got the wrong year?