The canicule if watching TV was a aggregate civic experience, with audiences in tens of millions, are declared to be over. But endure night the action which saw adolescent singers Olly Murs and Joe McElderry auspiciously voted through to tonight's X Factor final accepted it is still accessible to carbon the rules.
The two-night weekend final of the ITV1 aptitude appearance is accepted to allure about 20 actor admirers a night – an amazing amount that compares favourably with the channel's Saturday night celebrity canicule in the 70s, able-bodied afore the appearance of multi-channel broadcasting.
The accommodation of ITV administration to milk The X Factor's popularity, even admitting the appearance is in its sixth series, by abacus a best Sunday appearance to the architecture of the final, will acquiesce up to 90 commercials to be buried beyond four hours of prime-time advantage this weekend. That should construe into an assets of about £18m just from the television commercial – afore artful the sums generated by the exceptional band buzz vote, at 80p a pop. This will be a basic bang of funds for ITV in difficult times.
Tonight's two-hour show, in which either McElderry or Murs will be crowned champion, will go arch to arch with BBC1's Sports Personality of the Year. It will again neatly segue into I Dreamed a Dream: The Susan Boyle Story, which chronicles the acceleration to all-embracing distinction of the Scottish accompanist who was runner-up in ITV1's Britain's Got Aptitude this year.
Prince Harry was in the admirers endure night with adherent Chelsy Davy, and even the politicians accept been at action stations over the appearance this weekend. The adopted secretary, David Miliband, is still acclaim on Twitter for Cheryl Cole's protege, the 18-year-old McElderry, who comes from abutting to his South Shields constituency. Another adversary for the Labour leadership, Jon Cruddas, was aghast endure night. He had been advancement for the Dagenham diva Stacey Solomon, who lives in his constituency.
"Everyone about is acknowledging Stacey," he said yesterday, hours afore she was eliminated. "We will be on the bend of our seats and I shall absolutely be voting for her. As a backbencher, I accept added time to allot to agitating on Stacey's behalf, but I do achievement David has not adherent too abundant time to tweeting in abutment of Joe. It is good, of course, that he is acknowledging his bounded boy, but there are some absolutely acute all-embracing diplomacy he should be accessory to."
Media analysts adumbrate this weekend will prove the a lot of advantageous in ITV's history. So far, the bigger examination abstracts for The X Factor were garnered on the night that 16.4 actor acquainted in to attestant the fate of the Irish twins John and Edward Grimes, bigger accepted as Jedward. This exhausted the 14 actor who saw Alexandra Burke captain to achievement endure year. The aberrant address of Jedward has already accustomed ITV1 its bigger examination abstracts for endure month, if 14.4 actor watched in admiration as the teenagers ousted Welsh accompanist Lucie Jones from the appearance on 8 November.
These top ratings helped the approach endure month, if BBC1, BBC2, Approach 4 and Five anniversary acquaint their everyman November admirers allotment for years. ITV1, in contrast, managed an all-day allotment that was its best November achievement back 2006. The acceptance of ITV1's I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! has aswell paid dividends. The ratings for the boscage absoluteness alternation were the best back 2005.
This weekend affords a glimpse of ablaze at the end of the adit for the ailing broadcaster, which is still angry with falling examination abstracts and commercial income. A year ago, ITV admiral were anchored for a 20% attempt in revenues as commercial alone off the scale. But acknowledgment to The X Factor and Simon Cowell's added monster hit, Britain's Got Talent, revenues could now abatement by alone 12%.
The approach is anticipation to be able to allegation as abundant as £250,000 for 30 abnormal of commercial airtime on The X Factor tonight. "If you're not on X Factor this weekend, you won't get your bulletin across," said George Constantinou of Starcom MediaVest.
More than 8 actor humans voted in endure year's final, and buzz curve are accepted to be busier this time as humans now accept a accomplished day to accomplish their choice. This should accomplish about £1.5m from the exceptional band vote, while the show's advocacy accord with Talk Talk is estimated to be account £500,000 for the final. If these sums are added to commercial from the X Factor website, assets for the weekend may canyon £20m.
Sadly for ITV, abundant of this will go into Cowell's pocket. As architect of the X Factor format, he combines his role as the show's adjudicator with a position at the arch of Syco, the close that owns the rights to both The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent.
He is aswell about to renegotiate his accord with the channel, account £20m over three years. He takes a allotment of buzz vote profits, and his almanac aggregation has aboriginal abnegation on the stars.
If the favourite, McElderry, wins – he is 9-2 on, with Murs 3-1 – he will absolution a awning of Miley Cyrus's carol "The Climb", which is about assertive to be the Christmas No 1.