X Factor v Strictly

The last three months has seen the BBC and ITV battle it out with their rating winning shows, X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing.

The X Factor final was on Saturday night, where it finished with a flourish of nearly 14 million viewers seeing Alexandra Burke crowned queen for 2008, pretty much guaranteeing her Christmas number one spot with a version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”.

The live finals of X Factor have been dominating Saturday night commercial TV since the beginning of October, while the auditions and boot camp shows were regularly hitting over 8 million viewers for the two months previous to that.

Strictly Come Dancing and all its sequins returned to our screens at the end of September, with 16 celebrities determined to master a salsa.

The show’s semi-final was on Saturday night which has generated another BBC debacle, following all three couples making the final.

The official line from the BBC is: “Due to the unprecedented outcome of the judges’ vote (there was a tie between the top two couples – both scoring the maximum 3 points available) the audience vote could not have saved one of our couples from the dance off.”

All votes placed on Saturday night will be rolled over to the final next week, where all three couples will now dance again, much to the relief of bottom placed Tom Chambers & Camilla Dallerup. However there have already been 200 complaints to the BBC.

Looking from 18th October to last week’s shows, therefore excluding the uplift in viewers for the final, X Factor has the higher viewers for the main show at over 10 million on average, with Strictly sitting at nearly 9.5 million. However for the results show, Strictly has the edge, with 9.3 million versus nearly nine million.

BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com