TV Overnights: The X Factor races Strictly to the top spot

ITV1’s The X Factor retained its weekend crown despite tough competition from BBC One’s new Strictly Come Dancing series.

The two talent contests will come head-to-head from now on during the Saturday evening prime time slot in the run up to Christmas.

Strictly Come Dancing kicked-started with an impressive high of 8.8 million viewers during Friday evening’s opening show, which saw eight new celebrities including Lynda Bellingham and Joe Calzaghe join this year’s line-up.

The programme also started off well on Saturday evening with more than 8 million peak viewers, however, The X Factor stepped in to steal the show from 8pm onwards wih almost 10 million peak viewers.

The X Factor‘s final audition show, with judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole, continued to woo audiences on Sunday evening, picking up a high of more than 11.1 million viewers and a 41.4% average audience share.

The BBC One and ITV1 rival talent shows seemed to have stepped up their games this year with additional programmes on both Friday and Sunday as they are now directly competing for Saturday night’s ratings.

Elsewhere, ITV1’s film premiere of Casino Royale, the first James Bond film to star Daniel Craig, pulled in over 5.3 million peak viewers and a 25.6% average audience share on Saturday evening.

The channel also secured the peak audience through most of Sunday with Columbo, the James Bond classic Gold Finger, All Star Family Fortunes, the second X Factor and the new series of Doc Martin.

The new eight-part comedy drama series starring Martin Clunes as Dr Ellingham returned with more than 8 million peak viewers and a respectable 30.3% audience share during the all-important 9pm to 10pm slot last night.

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.