TV Overnights: X-Factor dominates despite Strictly’s best efforts
The X-Factor continued to dominate the weekend viewing, with strong audiences of over 11 million for both Saturday and Sunday’s shows.
Saturday’s edition pulled in an average audience of 11.2 million viewers, peaking at 12.3 million between 8.15pm – 8.30pm quarter hour slot. The programme’s average was hurt by the overlap between the first 15 minutes of the show coinciding with the last 15 minutes of Strictly Come Dancing, with the majority of viewers choosing to stick with the latter’s conclusion before switching over.
As for BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing, it pulled in a peak audience of more than 9.7 million viewers at 7pm. The whole programme averaged 8.7 million, with 38.3% share between 6pm to 7.45pm.
Elsewhere on Saturday night Channel 4’s new 6-part drama The Pillars of the Earth opened with a respectable viewing figure of 1.9 million, an 8.3% share for its two hour plus duration.
Moving onto Sunday night’s viewing, The X-Factor again kept its lead over Strictly Come Dancing, with the former attracting 12.6 million viewers to the latter’s 8.9 million.
Downton Abbey continues to perform well for ITV1, with the lavish period drama holding onto a sizeable chunk of The X-Factor‘s lead-in audience. Last night’s show was watched by an average of 8.4 million people, with a 9.2 million peak during the opening 15 minutes.
Elsewhere Channel 5’s movie premiere of hit comedy Superbad pulled in an average of 1.3 million, whilst BBC2’s Dragon’s Den: What Happened Next? and Match of the Day 2 had 1.7 million and 2.5 million viewers respectively.
Over on Channel 4, the new series of The Secret Millionaire kicked off with an audience of 1.9 million. Following immediately afterwards was another new series Desperate Housewives, which had moved from its traditional weekday slot, holding sway with 1.6 million viewers.
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.