‘Grand’ finale of Cowell’s X Factor beaten twice by Strictly
The past weekend finally brought some relief for right-thinking TV viewers across the country as the increasingly desperate and irrelevant hyperbole of karaoke that was The X Factor‘s (ITV) eleventh series finally rattled to an inconspicuous end.
Mercifully, the weekend’s grand finale displayed some self-control by curbing its recent three-night-in-a-row behaviour by selflessly only spreading the ‘tension’ across both Saturday and Sunday night’s schedules.
Saturday night’s two hour event kicked off at 8:30pm, just as its major BBC One rival wrapped up, offering up the three final singing combatants as entertainment sacrifice to the voting masses.
An average audience of 8.1 million viewers tuned in to see mummy’s favourite Andrea Faustini fall out of favour with the majority of intense fans, with the Italian’s exit securing a 36% share.
Just one day later the melodramatic soft rock and power ballads were back for one last flogging of the expired equine as viewers were treated to yet another two hours of intrusive edge-of-seat ad breaks, while One Direction, Sam Smith and Olly Murs all got a chance to promote their wares.
After 120 minutes of dramatic and aural procrastination, The X Factor was finally won by some bloke called Ben, netting 8.1 million viewers.
The end to the latest series of ITV’s much publicised and ever present reality show secured an average share of 36%, with Ben Haenow being crowned the new Steve Brookstein resulting in a ten year low for The X Factor finale.
It seems after years of retooling the format and using all the bad press to its favour, Simon Cowell’s ever-present money vehicle may finally be coming to the end of its life span.
Most worrying for ITV, however, was the fact the talent show was beaten on both nights by BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing. Saturday night saw the dancing competition’s semi-final force the five remaining contestants to foxtrot their way to victory.
On Saturday at 6:50pm an audience of 9.8 million viewers tuned in to see popular ladies’ man Jake Wood deliver a substandard cha-cha, while Mark Wright’s rumba failed to impress. The ever popular bout of (relatively) harmless family-friendly reality fun netted a 42% share and the day’s biggest audience, despite going on for one hour and 35 minutes.
On Sunday at 7:20pm, Jake Wood’s first visit to the dance-off proved to be his last as 9.6 million viewers tuned in to see the extremely popular actor go in a shock exit.
The short running time of 40 minutes almost certainly helped secure a bigger audience than ITV’s over-bloated show, with the semi-final’s big surprise bringing in a 42% share.
While The X Factor was trounced by its sequinned rival, the singing competition had Twitter users conversing at an impressive rate. For both nights ITV’s once-stellar performer managed to the most tweeted about TV show in the UK.
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. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.
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