Strictly Come Dancing is gaining ground and we can’t imagine that Simon Cowell will be best pleased.

The BBC reality TV series attracted one million more viewers than The X Factor for the fifteen minutes that both shows overlapped last night, even though traditionally many people tuned in would have previously switched over for the beginning of the ITV show.

An average of 9.4 million viewers watched Strictly’s Saturday special, with 9.5 million tuning in for the quarter of an hour that it clashed with The X Factor. Only 8.3 million people watched the singing show at that time.

However, the figures did build and in the end, Cowell’s show attracted an average of 10.1 million for the rock themed episode. The figure was once again 2 million down on last year’s ratings and remained static to last week’s, even though viewership for the show usually builds as the series progresses.

It has been claimed that Gary Barlow has received the brunt of Simon’s annoyance this week and the TV boss is said to have hit out at the quality of the acts and also the friendly judging style.

All that turned around last night, with Gary and Louis Walsh constantly sniping at one another, Tulisa claiming that only she had understood the rock theme (yes that’s right, she thinks Salt N Pepa are a rock act!) and the N-Dubz singer caused a furore when she accused Kelly Rowland’s singer Misha B of being a bully.

We have our suspicions that the panel’s conflict was mostly fabricated in a bid to make the show more controversial and to make it a talking point once more.

It may not have worked though and it’s telling that a sedate show like Strictly – on which Len Goodman teases Jason Donovan about his pert bum and Bruno Tonioli calls Rory bremner a ‘cocky rooster’ – seems to be growing in appeal week by week.

Could it be that people are getting sick of the gratuitousness and false controversy that is The X Factor? We have long been mega fans of the show but miss the days when it was all about the singing. Remember The McDonald Brothers, with their checked shirts, jeans and acoustic guitars….those were the good old days!

Let us know why you think the X Factor is losing ground in the comments section below.