Cowell to launch midweek version of X Factor

“Caroline [Flack] and Olly [Murs] have been really helpful and they’ve told us how it’s worked years before”.

They aren’t taking anyone from Strictly and are ignoring us or telling us their shows are full when normally they are all over us wanting our stars on their shows.

During a recent segment on Good Morning Britain, showbiz presenter Richard Arnold, who took part in Strictly in 2012, joked the BBC series was “The show that must not be named”.

On the BBC extravaganza’s launch night, the show pulled in an average of 8.7 million viewers, a 41.7% share of the audience on Saturday September 5, with a peak of 9.7 million viewers.

The new series of The X Factor has so far seen middling viewing figures and with the Beeb’s dancing show returning in a week’s time, Simon and co know they have to see a massive turn around in fortunes to avoid the risk of being scrapped.

Well, we have no idea, but while recording this week’s Celebrity Juice, Holly did reveal that she was “terrified” of how X Factor boss Simon Cowell would react when she had to tell him she was quitting.

Long-term fans of The X Factor will surely recall that Holly Willoughby used to present spin-off show The Xtra Factor…

Simon wants to save ratings [Wenn].

“We’ll have them on, but the series hasn’t started yet – we have bids in for some of the celebrities”.

BBC’s Strictly managed to win more than three million more viewers than X Factor when the two shows went head to head this month.

But in response to Strictly’s domination over the schedules, our Si’s got a nifty little plan – moving the Xtra Factor to the middle of the week, therefore directly competing against Strictly’s “It Takes Two“.