Quote:
Originally posted by MillionLights
XF ratings may be up a bit on 2015 for some episodes (although the opening episode flopped hard and some episodes have been below 2015 numbers), but they're still down on 2014 and the previous seasons.
Also, once the proper Strictly episodes start, XF's ratings will decline further. This show once got ratings as high as 19 million but now gets 7 or 8 million if it's lucky. It's been in decline almost consecutively since after 2010.
The audience for XF is also aging which is what advertisers don't want.
There's no reason to keep XF other than to allow a few years to develop a new primetime show or to wait until next year to move The Voice to the autumn slot and to move XF to spring when it's less competitive. |
So far this series has averaged 7.27m (34.2%) in the overnights, excluding +1. At the same point last year, it had averaged 6.90m (32.2%). So that's up by nearly 400,000 viewers and two percentage points. It's still way down from its peak, but channels don't make decisions on a curve. Any other show would kill for the numbers it's getting right now. ITV isn't going to cancel it just because it's down from what it used to get.
Again, its audience might be older than it was a couple of years ago, but in terms of the television landscape as a whole it still skews young. That means it's probably more valuable to advertisers than Strictly would be if it was on a commercial channel, simply because Strictly pads its numbers by pulling in huge figures with older viewers.
