The Ratings

You can make ratings tell any story you want. Believe me, I know.

The Media Guardian reported that The X Factor beat Strictly Come Dancing by 600,000 viewers on Sunday and led with the headline "X Factor edges out BBC rival". But does that tell the full story?

Well, in the battle for Sunday night, The X Factor was the winner.

But lost further down the article is the tale of Saturday night.

It starts with another paragraph which appears to declare the ITV1 show as the winner: "On Saturday, Strictly Come Dancing launched its series with 7.4 million viewers between 6.15pm and 7.30pm, while The X Factor drew 7.5 million between 6.45pm and 7.45pm on ITV1."

Hmm. 100,000 more viewers sounds a lot.

But if we dig a little deeper...

"When the two programmes were head to head on Saturday night between 6.45pm and 7.30pm, Strictly Come Dancing had the edge with 7.8 million viewers and a 36% share, compared with The X Factor's 7.2 million and 33%."

So in the head-to-head battle, SCD is actually the winner.

Like I said, you can make ratings tell whatever story you want...