Seems to me that ITV needs to change its Saturday night strategy and target the audience that's there. If that's old skewing then put older skewing programming such as their two hour detective dramas at the centre of the schedule.

Move the XF to midweek. Use it to reboot Tuesday's @ 8, with the results show playing Thursday's 8 to 9 and build these slots for light entertainment.

Why should anyone not interested in SCD care about its ratings? Comparisons are so 2010. If XF was winning this thread would be dismissing the comparisons entirely.
It has a default audience just by being on the BBC, of course it's going to do well.


Oh lighten up a little, please. Audience interaction is always a good thing.

A rare Sunday appearance from Mr Tings!

Match of the Day: 3.15m

(just to satisfy my OCD)

They've added a jukebox gimmick, which almost certainly will land on 'Fright Night' for Halloween.

As Craig says, Strictly is in a different league to TXF and rightly don't see it as competition. X Factor's constant panel changes haven't helped (even though you could argue it feels fresher this time around) and it's become so predictable from the editing down to the judges comments.

ITV should shorten it if they aren't prepared to rest it.

Sometimes a programme is only as popular as it is allowed to be by its competition. BBC1 struggles against Britain's Got Talent, ITV struggles against Strictly. Why? It's because their ratings haven't collapsed, they've got tremendous viewer loyalty.

Looking at January 2017, what will BBC ONE launch in the New Year? They have Sherlock, and Silent Witness (Mon & Tues). What else?

Strictly popularity has remained the same it not like they are now snatching x factor viewers they are never going to reach heights x factor did with 15 million viewers etc the problem for x factor is the amount of repeats it has on Tv and having YouTube as a means of catch up you can watch all performances in around 15 minutes. I think x factor would actually perform better on a weeknight like in the US

I'd probably move The X Factor forward so the episodes start an hour before Strictly finishes and push +1 for all it's worth. Buy the Pixar rights and place them across Strictly (the Toy Story set, Inside Out, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc., Frozen etc.) leading to a 7.30pm start for The X Factor, then have a new drama leading out of it... After Life didn't do too badly on Saturday nights back in the day if I recall correctly. The Strictly clash doesn't seem to affect The X Factor now so make the most of the - albeit declining - lead out to try and get something else going.

They have Let It Shine featuring Gary Barlow, which will be way better than The Voice and might just even get close to it ratings-wise.

Is that the same as what was happening during Strictly's timeslot this week?

Due to the 'older' viewers' support?

Younger viewers are more fickle and are finding different things to watch.

My grown up kids are more likely to ask me if I watch Narcos, Westworld or Stranger Things rather than something on regular TV.

It's already been announced that Sherlock will start on New Year's Day

You are hilarious; I mainly read this thread for your posts. Unless you are actually serious; in that case it's very, very sad...

Anyway, I think the real problem is going to come next year. As long as The Voice was on the BBC, X Factor could style itself as a rival singing competition if it suited them. Now with TVUK coming to ITV, they will have to establish a bit more of a distinction, and as TVUK most likely will maintain the 'real singers' credibility, XF will have to go more for the fun entertainment angle, and I have a horrible feeling this will mean more joke acts. The fact that they had two already this season could indicate that that's the way it's going, and I think that will be the final nail in the coffin.

They're obviously going for themes like Motown (and the older judges) in an attempt to win back some of the older Strictly viewers who have abandoned the show. But then the acts they've put through are either mostly weak or targeted at a younger audience, because of course Syco wants successful artists - and I think they can still make them.

Louisa's winning single did badly but her follow-up with Clean Bandit did well, and of course we have a former X Factor winner at #1 at the moment. If they go all out to get a good song this year they could clinch the Christmas #1 (though I'm slightly puzzled at why they are pimping Matt Terry so much, he doesn't scream popstar to me)

And as for people saying the show is over.. come on, you've been saying that for years. It should be doing a hell of a lot better (and this year actually deserves to), but it's clearly still massively profitable for ITV. It's not going anywhere yet.

That gap!
Jesus, what an embarrassment for X Factor.

Strictly is killing it this year.

If X Factor was pulling in 4 million more viewers than Strictly, you would never hear the end of it from Simon/Louis. That is why the comparisons still happen, because Cowell could not stop crowing when X Factor was getting the higher ratings. Funny how quiet he's been this year- I wonder why?

Thanks for the personal remarks, plenty coming today. Where are the moderators?

There's already big distinction between the two of them, XF is about commercial singers whereas The Voice is about sending people to sleep.

I agree trying to directly compare the two shows with completely different audiences is unfair, particularly because SCD skews older, but I think it's a bit daft to claim it's entirely down to it being a "default" audience. It's clearly the more popular show and it shows how far TXF has fallen.

But on the flip side, banging on about the gap is pointless because I agree, it's more important that TXF does well in its own right and pulls in the money for ITV, rather than trying to compete in a a battle with the BBC that is now unwinnable.

Last week: 9.60m (44.8%) - Total viewers watching TV across slot: 21.43m
This week: 9.78m (46.3%) - Total viewers watching TV across slot: 21.12m

So Strictly's audience went up despite less people watching TV during the time it was on.

I have been saying this for a while and often get shouted down by the few remaining XF supporters. But now the tide of views here are coming over to my view that XF is well under performing now.

Viewers are switching off in droves, the DS XF forum here is full of negativity in posts and threads, and they are the fans! The tabloids are out for it.

It's decline has been spectacular, in the main IT would have been cancelled if Simon hadn't bundled it together with the strong BGT.

The reasons are clear:-
Three of four judges are too old, too out of touch, can't sing, and one away with the caries.
They put through joke acts not someone with talent.
The show has considerable budget and financial support, but this is milked by excessive judges pay, and the basics on reacher cut.
The lack of research has caused embarrassment where thry didn't see by the final stages a contestant had beaten up an ex girlfriend.
Last year Caroline, And Nick were blamed as scapegoats but the current panel perform worse.
Yes Olly was out of his depth last year but shouldn't have all the blame.

This is a show where it had an audience of 16 million a few years back, it's a show where viewers are in, they are watching SCD and nit switching over to XF.

The XF fans have been posting they will switch off, on the DS forum, and are switching off.

Comments two weeks in a row the judges are drunk on the show, from a number of posters, and a feeling all bar ine act was miming.

I note Simon isn't commenting on ratings, and clearly not blaming SCD for being the better show, so he knows it's just not going to be accepted and like Trump anything XF try's to spin on this disaster will not be accepted.

The show was dead a few years back the life support machine with a bundle to BGT should gave been switched off , SyCo wouldn't take BGT anywhere else, ITV should have said to him, we will have BGT only not XF.

Superb for Strictly once again. Up 0.2m week-on-week and up 0.1m on last years equivalent week. Peaked just before XF started too suggesting if XF wasn't there it would have probably hit 11.0m and sent the average to around 10.0m.

God that's awful for XF. What a disaster of a rating. I think the bizarre decisions at judges houses have sent some viewers away although there's no denying that the live shows are very watchable this year. I really thought with less of an overlap XF would have been around 6.5m. Last year's second live show averaged 6.6m so it's down about 0.8m. Not good. Losing close to 1.0m is not a situation they want to be in right now with 8 more weeks to go.

BBC does not have a default audience, recent rstings show that, some shows are rating badly, and some LE offerings on Saturdays on BBC1 have bombed. That is not an acceptable excuse, that some just come home and switch on BBC1.

SCD shows how a show engages its audience , has popular appeal, and the whole family can watch together. SCD has a tight budget and produces a brilliant show.

XF has too big a budget spent mainly on inflated fees for the judges, and not enough spent on research, nurture, and the judges are out of touch, too old for the teenage market, and its loyal fans have all but given up on it.

The Potter films have already been overexposed on ITV diminishing what they're capable of. Had they continued to be used sparingly it would've been better long term. At one point, IIRC, ITV ran the whole lot thrice in one year.

Yep. First three Sunday's are Sherlock. What could launch on the 22nd?

BBC1 doesn't have a default audience,programmes do. If BBC1 did have a default audience Tumble would have been a hit and have numbers the size of Strictly and Cuff would have matched Bake Off's ratings on Wednesdays. If Strictly wasn't there 9m wouldn't be automatically switching on BBC1.