Strictly tops X Factor and I'm A Celebrity in Sunday TV ratings

Updated

Strictly Come Dancing won the Sunday night triple TV battle as it went up against the X Factor and the new series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!.

Strictly's results show, which aired first in the line-up at 7.20pm, averaged 10.4 million viewers, with 43.2% of the audience share.

The show peaked with 11.2 million viewers as fans saw BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine miss out on a place at Blackpool's Tower Ballroom next week after being sent home.

The new series of ITV's I'm A Celebrity, which aired at 9pm, did not manage to overtake Strictly, averaging just 9.8 million viewers and 44% of the audience share.

While the share is up year on year from 43%, the show peaked with 11.1 million viewers, still slightly short of Strictly.

The X Factor, sandwiched in-between the two others, aired on ITV at 8pm and garnered 7.3 million viewers, with a 30% share and a 100,000 increase from the previous Sunday.

The show peaked with 8.7 million viewers and was not short of drama as host Olly Murs had to apologise following an on-air blunder.

Murs said he was a "plonker" following the incident which saw him telling a contestant she was going home before the official result was announced.

He accidentally told Monica Michael she was eliminated, prompting his co-host Caroline Flack to say: "No Olly, she's not."

Murs had thought three out of the four judges had opted to send Michael home, meaning that she would have been automatically out of the competition but, as two judges had voted for each contestant, it had to go to "deadlock" to be decided by the public vote.

Flack then announced: "The act who received the fewest votes from the public and who will be leaving the competition tonight is ...it's Monica Michael."

Murs later tweeted: "I apologise to everyone tonight I made a massive f%#k up at the end. It was so tense!! I'm still learning & hope that never happens again!"

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