Strictly enters the fray and rains on X Factor’s parade
This weekend’s TV finally brought about the return of the annual monolithic clash between two of Saturday night’s biggest shows as ITV’s fading karaoke panto The X Factor (8:15pm) attempted to weather the arrival of BBC One’s sequin-sponsored joviality that is Strictly Come Dancing (7:15pm).
Last week Simon Cowell’s ever-present mug ushered in a new series of his competitive desperation show to a significantly reduced audience, while Saturday night saw BBC One’s prize jewel swoop in with its 13th series and had absolutely no trouble picking up where it left off.
The lightweight frothy fun kicked off at 7:15pm on BBC One as Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman launched the series in the usual glitzy fashion.
The hour and 20 minute show saw this year’s celebrities get matched up with their professional partners, with an average audience of 8.7 million viewers tuning in to see the couples take their first spin on the dancefloor.
Improving slightly on last year’s launch show (which managed 8.4 million viewers) Saturday night’s first taste of Strictly Come Dancing saw mammy’s favourite Daniel O’Donnell join forces with Russian man-eater Kristina Rihanoff and netted an impressive 42% share.
Over on ITV, The X Factor was once again shoulder deep in its own hype with Saturday bringing another hour and 15 minutes of capable and mentally ill auditions.
Opening up last week with ‘just’ 7.1 million viewers, the latest entertaining package of broken dreams and prime time overshares managed to exactly replicate the first week’s audience, with another 7.1 million viewers translating to a 33% share.
But the real excitement came right in the middle as the closing 20 minutes of Strictly directly clashed with crying people attempting to sing on ITV.
Those all-important 20 minutes saw The X Factor noticeably affected, with just 5.4 million viewers tuning for the opening 15 minutes. Luckily the long-running fame quest show has a few weeks to get its act together before BBC One’s tap-dancing juggernaut sashays it way back to TV screens for live episodes in a few weeks’ time.
Things had calmed down slightly by the time Sunday rolled along with Countryfile (BBC One, 7pm) netting 5.6 million viewers and a 30% share.
Afterwards Antiques Roadshow (BBC One, 8pm) held strong with 5.3 million viewers and a 23% share, while the weekend’s second serving of The X Factor (ITV, 7:45pm) attracted 6.7 million viewers and a 30% share, resulting in Sunday’s biggest hit.
9pm brought some proper Sunday night filth to the masses as the once controversial and now-as-tame-as-a-new-born-kitten novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (9pm) got the H&M campaign/Poldark treatment by featuring an aesthetically-pleasing cast looking forlorn and thoughtful in mood lighting.
Featuring James Norton, him off Happy Valley and every other domestic drama since (as wheelchair-bound Sir Chatterley who misses out on all the fun) and Richard Madden (Game of Thrones‘ slain would-be King of the North) as the saucy gamekeeper, the feature-length event brought in 4.9 million viewers.
In the end, Lady Chatterley’s (Holliday Grainger) romps in ye olde time hay won the 9pm slot with a 24% share.
But there was enough of Sunday night’s audience left over to fall under the Cockney charms of Ray Winestone’s latest bad boy in The Trials of Jimmy Rose (ITV, 9pm). 3.6 million viewers tuned in for the second episode of the freshly released criminal getting used to life on the outside, netting a 17% share.
[advert position=”left”]At the same time Channel 4 allowed viewers another chance to view Marvel Studios’ biggest misfire to date, with the mostly pointless Iron Man 2 (9pm) from 2010 bringing in 2.1 million viewers and a 10% share.
Meanwhile, Channel 5 was still broadcasting the antics of the incarcerated beautiful souls on Celebrity Big Brother (9pm) which managed 1.2 million viewers and a 6% share.
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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