11million viewers tune in to best-ever series of Strictly

THIS year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing is the most popular in the programme’s 14 years on screen.

It has attracted around 11million viewers each weekend, just beating last year’s all-time high of 10.9million.

With a huge audience expected for tomorrow’s final, this figure is likely to go up.

The show also has a bumper lead over its ITV rival The X Factor, regularly pulling in 4.6million more viewers.

The gap has grown every year since 2012, when Strictly first began to move ahead of the ITV talent show, which is fronted by Simon Cowell.

The figures reveal how Strictly has become one of the BBC’s biggest successes of recent years – and how The X Factor has tumbled in popularity since the start of the decade. In 2010, it was watched by an average of 14.1million people a week. However, this year the figure was just 6.3million.

On current form there’s a chance the final of Strictly tomorrow, which includes 59-year-old contestant Debbie McGee, will be one of the most-watched in the show’s history.

Last year the final had overnight ratings of 11.8million, rising to 13.3million when the full ratings were published.

But the biggest audience for a Strictly final was 14.3million in 2010.

Tomorrow’s final is on BBC 1 at 6.30pm, featuring Miss McGee, Alexandra Burke, Joe McFadden and Gemma Atkinson.