'X Factor' Big Band week draws 11.6 million

The X Factor added almost a million viewers week-on-week for its third live performances show on Saturday night.

Big Band week averaged 11.58m (44.1%) for ITV1 over two hours from 8pm, a marked improvement on last week's performance.

Beforehand, in the 7pm hour, You've Been Framed and Harry Hill's TV Burp brought in respective audiences of 5.45m (23.3%) and 6.63m (26.7%).

BBC One's Merlin logged 4.88m (24.3%) at 6.15pm, then the latest round of Strictly Come Dancing averaged 8.42m (33.2%) over two hours from 7pm.

The Lottery draw interested 4.33m (16.6%) at 9pm, then Casualty kept 4.52m (17.6%) until 10pm.

Piers Morgan's Life Stories, this week featuring Katherine Jenkins, put in 4.62m (22.9%) for ITV1 in the 10pm hour.

BBC Two's Autumnwatch 2009 had 1.13m (4.4%) from 7.30pm, then an hour later, Balmoral improved the audience to 1.79m (6.8%). From 9.30pm, an extended edition of Have I Got News For You appealed to 2.24m (9%).

Channel 4's screening of Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show averaged 670k (2.5%) between 8pm and 10pm, then Blade: Trinity followed with 1.33m (8%).

A rerun of NCIS grabbed 831k (3.4%) for Five at 7.15pm, then at 8.05pm, CSI: NY took 745k (2.8%). A second episode put in 870k (3.4%) in the 9pm hour, then CSI and Law & Order: SVU brought in respective audiences of 1.21m (5.9%) and 966k (6.9%).

Overall, ITV1 stormed ahead in primetime with an average audience share of 35% to BBC One's 26.3%. BBC Two was third with 6.6%, followed by Channel 4 with 3.4% (+1: 0.5%) and Five with 3.7%.

ITV2's The Xtra Factor was the top-rated multichannel programme of the day, averaging 831k (4.4%) in the 10pm hour and 99k (0.8%) on timeshift.

BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional