Popular dance show outsteps X Factor in TV ratings

The BBC’s primetime dance-off show Strictly Come Dancing has knocked the popular X Factor off the top of the ratings for the second week running.

Strictly, as it’s often called, and ITV’s The X Factor go head to head during autumn and winter each year for Saturday’s early-evening ratings. But initial figures showed that 9.9 million people watched Strictly, while just 7.5 million watched the start of The X Factor, at the point that the two programmes overlapped. Once the overlap was finished and Strictly was over, the figures for The X Factor shot up to 11.3 million at its peak. The BBC says: “The overnight figures suggest that audiences waited for the end of Strictly Come Dancing before turning over to watch X Factor.” The figures dipped considerably, though, towards the end of The X Factor: “However, more than half of viewers had switched off by the time Kitty Brucknell staged her Alice in Wonderland-style X Factor cover of ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’. The final 15 minutes of the show were watched by just 5.5 million viewers,” says the BBC. When The X Factor opened for its 2011 UK season it was watched by an average of 10.5 million people – even though it was the first series without the show’s founder, Simon Cowell. Cowell’s anger Cowell, is said to be angry with this weekend’s drop in ratings. The Telegraph says he was so upset that he called his team in the UK and “tore a strip off them.” He’s also expected to tell the show’s judges that they must raise their game. Cowell disappeared from the judges’ panel for the 2011 series of The X Factor in the UK. So did Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue. Louis Walsh remains on the panel, and in Cowell’s chair sits Take That singer/songwriter Gary Barlow. Currently sitting with Barlow and Walsh are American recording artist Kelly Rowland – who came to stardom through the American girl group Destiny’s Child – and Tulisa Contostavlos, a British singer/songwriter who’s best known for membership of the hip-hop outfit N-Dubz.