TV Overnights: Sunday night X Factor wins 11.6m viewers
The final X Factor audition show attracted 11.6 million peak viewers last night – the highest ratings of the weekend.
The X Factor, with guest judge Nicole Scherzinger, secured more than 10.9 million average viewers and a 39.8% share between 7.45pm and 9pm on Sunday, following an equally impressive audience share on Saturday evening.
The first of the two shows from Manchester, which saw the 2010 auditions come to a close, pulled in over 11.5 million peak viewers and a 42.7% average share between 7.30pm and 8.45pm on Saturday.
ITV1 also did well with its all-new Sunday night drama Joe Maddison’s War. The feature-length World War Two drama starring Kevin Whately and Robson Green started on a high of more than seven million viewers at 9pm. However, the programme settled on 5.8 million average viewers and a 25.6% share between 9pm and 10.55pm.
Earlier on in the day, ITV1’s afternoon film A View to a Kill with Roger Moore pulled in a decent 2.6 million viewers and a 16.6% audience share, while The X Factor repeat from Saturday night picked up 1.6 million viewers and a 13.5% share.
However, BBC One held most of the peak ratings throughout the morning schedule with its coverage of the Great North Run and the Battle of Britain Sunday from Westminster Abbey.
The channel’s new The Battle of Britain documentary, meanwhile, secured 4.4 million peak viewers and a 16.3% average audience share during the 8.30pm to 10pm Sunday evening slot.
On Saturday, the ratings were more evenly divided between ITV1 and BBC One. Once again, the BBC claimed the morning slots with its sports coverage, while ITV1 held the peak share during the early afternoon with a James Bond film and a Midsomer Murders.
Viewers seemed to flick between the two channels from 5pm onwards, with BBC One’s Hole in the Wall, Celebrity Total Wipeout and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow all proving popular. ITV1’s new Phil Collins: One Night Only also managed a brief share of the peak audience. The Saturday night music show banked 4.9 million peak viewers after The X Factor but slipped down to an average audience of 4.3 million viewers after that.
On Friday evening, the soaps battled it out for the pre-watershed slots, before BBC One’s New Tricks won the 9pm to 10pm peak-hour top spot.
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.