X Factor’s yearly decline has continued to worsen, with last night’s show seeing more dropping figures in the TV ratings.
An average audience of 8.66 million viewers watched the final episode of auditions, including those you caught up on ITV+1.
It’s down almost 1.2 million viewers on last year where 9.82 million watched the last round of Arena tryouts ahead of bootcamp.
In slightly good news for show bosses however the series has seemingly stabilised at these lower numbers, with last night’s show up ever so slightly from last Sunday’s 8.6 million and on a par with yesterday’s 8.6 million figure.
Of course with the return of Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell, we can’t but feel producers would have been hoping for better.
And we reckon Simon himself isn’t too happy that Gary Barlow is currently proving more popular than he is.
But slightly more worrying is the fact that as the live shows near, viewing figures really aren’t going anywhere with seemingly quite a lack of interest in the new series and the current contestants.
In more bad news for ITV, the return of Downton Abbey last night was the least watched since its first ever episode, with 8.43 million viewers.
Not even Simon Coweeell, nor Louis, even Mel B
not even Cheryl Cole, could save X Factor's ratings...
And to think Simon thought last year's panel was boring and that's why the ratings were bad.
Because they've made it The Cheryl Show and the GP clearly aren't here for it.
Agreed. I ain't even watching it because I'm really over the whole sob stories + cliche comments on auditions but people who are watching are pissed off because it's all about Cheryl now.
I think more people record TV shows and watch it later, or find them online, so the fact that 8 million people watched this when it was on is kind of good :/
the good sis Cheryl will colect ha coins, get her promo for her new single and walk away 
I actually have several people I'm rooting for already unlike last year 