TV Guide reports today that X Factor judge Tulisa has revealed that the sluggish start to this year’s series in terms of viewer ratings isn’t a concern for her.

She said, “Regardless of how much the figures go up and down it’s still the biggest, most watched show on television.”

However, it’s been revealed today that last night, The X Factor actually managed to land more viewers than the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing 2012 debut.

Fortunately for us viewers, as the BBC and ITV have agreed to stop and desist with their annual pi**ing contest, Strictly and X Factor didn’t clash in their timeslots last night, so an average of 8.6 million of us watched X Factor, while 8 million tuned in for Strictly which aired between 6:30 and 7:35pm.

But that said, the figures may be somewhat misleading in that at its peak last night, Strictly was watched by 9.8 million viewers, the highest launch show ever, while The X Factor peaked with 9.5 million…

But when the viewers of X Factor’s re-run on ITV1+1 were taken into account, the overall figures of 10 million proved to be X Factor’s biggest audience of this series.

The X Factor of coures continues tonight when we’ll see the final auditions round. The show moves on to Boot Camp next week.

As for Strictly, the live shows will begin on October 5th.