While The X Factor Cat’s Away …Come Dancing Plays With 7m Viewers

With the first live edition of The X Factor pushed back a week by the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup 2007, BBC One waltzed away with the early evening viewers on Saturday.

The second week of the ballroom dancing competition attracted a healthy average adult rating of 7.3 million viewers, easily defeating ITV1’s golden couple Ant & Dec on their Saturday Night Takeaway (which could only muster 4.2 million viewers).

Focusing this week on the celebrity women, Strictly Come Dancing saw its viewership increase throughout the hour and 15 minute duration (with a quarter peak of 8.3 million for the show’s last 15 minutes).

Earlier in the day, England’s drab 3-0 win over Estonia attracted an impressive 5.4 million viewers for Match of the Day Live. Viewing stayed above five million for the match’s duration, with over seven million tuning in for the last 15 minutes of a very uneventful second half.

Sunday night saw an impressive number of people watching Stephanie Beacham get voted off Strictly Come Dancing. An average audience of 6.9 million viewers tuned into the results show, over three million more than saw the final half hour of animated movie Ice Age (2.8 million) and Emmerdale: The Wedding Special (three million) on ITV1.

Elsewhere over the weekend, petrol heads seemed to have deserted Top Gear for a week, with viewing to the programme down on the previous week’s. An average of 4.5 million saw Jools Holland take the ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ test, down from 5.2 million for the series opener last week.

Michael Palin’s New Europe, despite competition from the second semi final of the Rugby World Cup, attracted 5.7 million adult viewers. Meanwhile Channel 4’s movie premiere of Jude Law’s version of 60s icon Alfie lost out in the rating battle to Five’s repeat of S.W.A.T., with 1.4 million watching the former and 1.8 million seeing the latter.

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, ITV2 and Sky One.

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