TV Overnights: X Factor steals the show with 12m viewers
ITV1’s The X Factor stole the show once again this weekend with a high of more than 12.2 million viewers.
This year’s talent contest is proving to be just as successful as previous series, starting off with a 11.1 million peak viewers two weeks ago and picking up a high of 10.6 million in its second week.
This Saturday’s show was no exception, pulling in even more viewers than the previous weeks. The X Factor auditions continued with 11.7 million average viewers and an impressive 51.8% audience share between 7.35 and 8.35pm.
The show also helped ITV1 secure the highest ratings for most of Saturday with a peak run of Agatha Christie, England V Slovenia in ITV’s Live International Football coverage, The X Factor and Phillip Schofield’s new game-show The Cube.
However, BBC One managed to secure the peak audience later on in the evening with its film – Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl – which pulled in almost 5 million peak viewers.
BBC One also banked the prime-time slot on Sunday evening with its new Waking the Dead series, starring Trevor Eve.
The first episode of the all-new ten-part drama attracted over 6 million average viewers and a respectable 24.7% audience share between 9pm and 10pm.
On Friday, the Big Brother live final failed to secure the top-spot, losing out to ITV1’s Coronation Street and Rebus and BBC One’s News at Ten and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.
Jonathan Ross returned to our screens with over 3.2 million peak viewers, while ITV1’s peak-hour repeat of the crime thriller Rebus picked up a high of 4.1 million viewers.
Channel 4’s Big Brother, meanwhile, attracted 2.5 million viewers during the first part and a further 2.7 million average viewers during the second part, when the winner of series 10 was announced.
The live final of the long-running reality show did manage to secure the peak audience for a fifteen minute slot towards the end of the second programme with 3 million viewers, which is the most it has attracted since the opening show on June 4.
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.