Up against Merlin direct (a far far better show) as opposed to Strictly.

And Merlin has being doing very well indeed - deservedly.

Nice of you to say so, I work on this show (and it's 31 years since we giving it some as Brendons bass player).... But I still watch the X factor first,

to be honest I've not heard anyone talk about Merlin. I assumed it was slowly fading away into ratings oblivion. Don't think they are competing shows so not sure it'll worry X-Factor as much as when they overlap with Strictly.

The average X FACTOR viewer is aged around 10 years old. Merlin viewers are generally families and I would think that Merlin will do well.

The Saturday night episode was the best MERLIN yet - and I never hear of anyone discussing X Factor apart from on the industry forums ( but there again Sun readers are mainly confined to the Chav Towns of the UK - which is another reason why the Sun now has so dumbed down even by its own standards )

The Sun has been dumbed down for the best part of 30 years. A vile rag.

And what precisely are Chav towns? Anything outside your own cosy metropolis?

Don't fret. BR loves to generalise. It tends to offend, not that he'd notice.

Figures for Merlin are below:

22nd November 7,000,000
29th November 6,501,000
6th December 5,735,000

Doing great but suffering from scheduling.

And add in the Sunday repeats I bet it's almost 10 million a week.

The X Factor average ratings top out at 9.7, as did Strictly John Sergeant,but Merlin barely receives a whiff of the publicity the other two attract.

what is merlin?