I encountered quite a bit of this today. I heard X Factor mentioned in quite a few places, just in general. There really does seem to be a real hype about this years live shows, I'm getting really excited about them now

Has anyone else noticed people speaking about X Factor in public at some point in the day?

It's all anyone's been talking about at school today.

Diana, Austin, Eoghan and Bad Lashes seem to be the favourites.

The Help for Heroes thing I think has helped the show no end.

All my mates have been talking about it, going to an all boys school it's rare to see anyone talking about it though lol!

Everyones talking about it.

Two girls in front of me were talking about it on the bus today. One liked Eoghan and one liked Rachel.

Not where I come from they are not. People used to until last year but it seems the show is losing its shine now. I hear more people talking about SCD than XF now which is odd as people assume its an OAP show.

My loca radio station don't even talk about the XF anymore but they always discuss SCD on a Monday morning.

Hardly losing it's shine. It's the most popular X Factor yet.

Yeah because it no longer clashes with SCD. Meaning people who had to chose before can now watch both. Hence the ratings for both shows go up.

ive come across alot of people in favour of alex and rachel.

Yet it's been the most watched tv show 7 out of 8 weeks

Pre-Live Show Averages (auditions, boot camp, judges houses)

X Factor 1 (2004) - 6.53m
X Factor 2 (2005) - 8.29m
X Factor 3 (2006) - 7.52m
X Factor 4 (2007) - 7.88m
X Factor 5 (2008) - 9.19m
(overnight figures)

In the past, Strictly wasn't even on TV until the judges houses stage. This weekend, X Factor on Saturday got 9.8m which is the highest ever rating for a non launch or non finale show. The 6 audition episodes had the highest average ever. The 2 boot camp episodes had the highest average ever.

With regard to the age of viewers, X Factor is comfortably the highest rated show on TV for viewers aged 16-34. It had 2.4 million viewers in that age bracket last night. Strictly had 1.0 million.

Yes beause until four weeks ago the XF had no competion. Thats why it has done so well. Not clashing wiTh SCD anymore has helped the show IMO. People can now watch both withou having to chose.

There have only been 3 clashes though (I'm not counting the pre-series show) and ratings were comfortably higher before SCD returned.