It’s a battle as old as time. Strictly versus X Factor. Which TV behemoth will emerge victorious in the Saturday night prime time ratings war?
Well, these days the answer is very much Strictly, with its Movies Week extravaganza pulling in nearly 10 million viewers, compared to a live average of 4.5 million for X Factor.
Ouch.
And triumphant Strictly Come Dancing pro Anton du Beke couldn’t resist taking a cheeky swipe at that gargantuan difference in viewers while appearing on Strictly spinoff It Takes Two.
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Anton was on the sofa with Strictly partner Ruth Langsford, who was being quizzed by Zoe Ball on how she deals with her nerves.
Zoe said: “You’re having to dance in front of your husband and your son, in front of 10,000 people.”
Er, you may wanna recalculate that figure, Zoe!
Realising her error, Zoe corrected herself to say: “10 million people!”
Cue Anton interrupting with a naughty joke at the expense of Strictly’s long-time rival!
“10,000 people?” he laughed. “Is this X Factor?”
Viewers were tickled by Anton’s joke, taking to Twitter to laugh about his rather unsubtle swipe at Simon Cowell’s reality beast.
According to Radio Times, nearly twice the audience watched the latest Strictly performance show as tuned into X Factor on the same night.
9.8 million people watched Strictly on average with a peak of 10.2 million, while 4.5 million on average tuned into X Factor, with an extra 300,000 on catch-up.
No doubt it wasn’t exactly news to notoriously competitive X Factor boss Simon Cowell’s ears… particularly after he made a string of changes to this year’s show.
However, refusing to get sucked into another ratings war, he surprisingly insisted recently he’s going to pay less attention to numbers and just focus on producing a good show.
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He told The Sun: “I’ve learnt to keep my mouth shut about [ratings].
“We can’t compete with their overall audience because they’re much older. What’s important for us is to keep the young audience interested in the show.”
Strictly 1 – 0 X Factor?