Singing And Dancing Dominate Weekend Viewing Figures

The new series of Strictly Come Dancing on BBC One and ITV1’s The X Factor dominated the weekend viewing figures, pulling in more than nine million viewers each.

Strictly Come Dancing, with Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly, attracted 9.2 million peak viewers to the first show on Saturday at 6.10pm, while the second show on Sunday evening banked an impressive 8.5 million peak viewers.

Meanwhile, the final leg of the audition process saw over 10.2 million peak viewers tune in to see The X Factor on Saturday between 7.30pm and 8.30pm.

The popular reality show with judges Simon Cowell, Dannii Minogue, Louis Walsh and Cheryl Cole, secured a massive 41.7% audience share with 9.2 million average viewers during the hour-long programme.

BBC One’s new family fantasy adventure series, Merlin, premiered at the same time and managed to gain a 30% audience share with 6.6 million average viewers.

Channel 4’s film, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, failed to compete with its rivals, only pulling in an average audience of 1.7 million viewers and a 8.4% audience share between 7.30pm and 10.55pm on Saturday.

Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations.

BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com Channel Four: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com