Young people are not watching 'regular' TV like they used to.

For a young skewing show like XFactor to have a 33% share of all those watching TV at 9pm on a Saturday evening is still very good.

What other young skewing programmes get near that sort of share?

How many of ex viewers of XFactor are now watching SCD? Have their figures risen?

More likely they're watching on demand/streaming that's not included in BARB's figures.

10pm, but the performances were over by 9.50pm.

That's right, and therefore arguably its not baffling. We have seen fatigue with TVUK all through and BGT once the early auditions have gone. Cowell has tried all his aces from the past apart from Danni (who ironically is turning up with Gary Barlow on the BBC). The public have simply lost a chunk of its appetite for star creation. Its all been there done that with Leona Lewis, Subo, James Arthur etc, and at the end of ten long weeks someone will be churned out who will struggle with the singles chart because that chart is now a weirdly different animal.
Strictly is different because its not its job to turn out unknowns into dance, its a tremendously warm and welcoming way to spend a dark and maybe cold and wet evening and its largely maintained that over ten years plus. No problem in getting people to be on it, its a just a great package and its showing in the ratings.
Like others have said Im not sure what can now be done to energise X Factor, it now feels like change for change sake which isn't helping matters either.

The early stages of TXF are still very popular. Viewers love the auditions, in the same way they like the Chairs on The Voice.

ITV shouldn't rejig the series but adjust when it is shown. TXF could just run audition shows starting in late September. Then roll out the live shows over one week in mid December, culminating with the live final on it's traditional weekend.

In your opinion. I personally thought it was unprofessional, and frankly embarrassing. Nicole hoping the cameras catch her at the right moment was awful, and Sharon just wasn't funny.

Its more sad them trying to create some sort of star out of her.
Simon saying it's his guilty pleasure was just ridiculous in that in the past he's always disliked the joke acts. Think they have taken a wrong turn into a cul de sac with this.

This is what I was thinking, how many people under the age of 21 would really have an inkling what Motown was and also watch XF- I can't see there being much crossover: I think they should calm down on the theme's like Strictly do, have Halloween, movie soundtrack week, and one other one where they can make the staging feel like an event and leave it at that- Nobody in that show last night will be doing Motown in the real.world so why do it on XF?

I TV must be panicking now over the Voice aquisition because it could actually accelerate fatigue and damage both show, especially with the kids spin off to come as well

Like I said on the thread, I used to look forward to the lives, this year it's so shite. No likeable AND good contestants. Less said about Honey G the better. Dire performances, TIRED theme tunes, Mo-town again zzzzzZzz.

Of course the comparisons matter. Cowell always made them when TXF was winning. You can't decide that they aren't relevant now the tables have turned. That isn't how this works.

Last week: 6.21m (29.1%) - Total viewers watching TV across slot: 21.34m
This week: 5.76m (28.0%) - Total viewers watching TV across slot: 20.57m

Approximately 700k less viewers watched TV last night compared to last week in The X Factor's slot... over half of them stopped watching The X Factor itself.

There was a massive drop off at 9pm relatively speaking. It should have kept increasing at that point, or at least keep level.

They were watching it a few weeks back during the auditions

Shocked by that X Factor figure. I expected a rise with less of a Strictly overlap. I doubt themes drive viewers away. Haven't they done a Motown theme week before?

Well, I certainly don't remember them filling time during the *main show* by encouraging viewers to send in pictures of relatives who look like the acts.

Nobody cares if Hannah's mum from Colchester looks like Honey G.

Bang on.

Exactly, lead in means nothing to a show like The X Factor, the idea that people choose to watch it based on what was on at 6:30 is laughable.

I think it's just fatigue of live shows in general. BGT and The Voice also see big drops these days. But the problem they have is that if they reduce the number of shows like last year, it just doesn't work.

Maybe it's time to look at moving the whole thing to a 2 hour block on a Sunday. The Sunday results worked when people were talking about the show and catching up ahead of the Sunday results but that doesn't happen anymore. And the results show itself is terribly padded, now more than ever now they have only 1 guest compared to 2-3 a few years ago.

They need to bring back Britney week. Wasn't that one of the highest rated live shows ever?

It's Match of the Day.

How young people watch X Factor would be true in previous weeks too. Wouldn't they be more likely to watch live shows than recorded shows in previous weeks? The live shows aren't as much of a pull as auditions? Used to be that live shows were the highest rated portion of The X Factor. When did that change?

Well those itv ratings aren't actually that much down on what was predicted.

TP is right where people thought.
MTP was 400k down.
XF was 500k down.
SCD was about par.

However, they're still poor for ITV. I ain't got through Judges Houses yet so I can go off the comments that the shows are good. It's hard to consolidate to 8m from there. All they can hope is that good WoM comes through for it over time. I'm not judging it until after the clashes.

MTP was good and got pretty good Twitter which is amazing for a new show. It's just been given a death slot. As will Next Great Magician. The shambles that puts certain dramas on a 7pm lives on.

If the show stays good then they need to renew it. Really it should be swapped with TP. Non new show should be up v SCD. Since they don't have adverts it barely matters what ratings they get.


As I said yesterday, ITV do not help themselves.

Gradually over the years I think. In 2011 the live shows plateaued and got similar numbers to the auditions rather than pulling ahead. Same happened in 2012 and then in 2013 they dipped slightly, and the extent of the dip into the live shows has increased a little bit each year since.

Whatever ITV showed against BBC big hitters, either new, existing, or filler, would be criticised one way or another.

You are either wasting a solid show, killing off a new show before it even starts, or deliberately handing the audience to the BBC by not trying.

All variants have been discussed here over the years and it always results in calls that they should do one of the other options until they do, when it should then be the third option, and then back to the 1st option!

Was that during 2011-2015?

2008. It got 11.9m, partly because Britney herself appeared (it wasn't long after her meltdown). A Britney week wouldn't get any boost these days, her appearance on Jonathan Ross got dire numbers and didn't she even appear on Loose Women recently?

People are obviuosly tired of xfactor 2 hours of mediocre people shouting (not singing) and the judges who are all so arrogant and unlikeable, trying to outdo each other

I wonder how xfactor would do in a friday 8-10 slot with the results on a saturday night after strictly avoiding any clashes. Or as someone else said all the live shows stripped across one week like bgt.