Strictly dances off with victory in ratings war

RATINGS woes continued for The X Factor as rival Strictly Come Dancing waltzed off with victory again when the two shows went head to head on Saturday night.

BBC1’s Strictly gained in excess of a million more viewers when the two shows overlapped for the second week running.

ITV1’s The X Factor saw its audience down by almost two million compared to the equivalent show in 2010. Normally the programme can expect its audience to build throughout the series, but viewers have remained static with an average of 10.1 million watching last night’s third live show of the series.

Last year the show pulled in 12 million at this stage of the competition. Simon Cowell is said to have been unhappy with the performance of the show and chief judge Gary Barlow has already been critical of the standard of some of the acts. Strictly last night pulled in an average of 9.4 million viewers, with 9.5 million watching as the show was screened at the same time as The X Factor for 15 minutes. The ITV1 talent show had 8.3 million at that time.

The X Factor had been building its audience annually but the slowdown has coincided with the new judging panel – Barlow, Kelly Rowland, Louis Walsh and Tulisa Contostavlos – and the departure of show creator Cowell.