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Good news for anyone who is sick to the stomach of manfactured pop dominating Saturday night television, as the X Factor's ratings plummeted to the lowest in just under ten years.
The final, which encompassed a slew of high profile guest appearances from Ellie Goulding, Elton John, One Direction, Tom Odell and The Killers just couldn't be saved with just 8.5 million viewers tuning in for the first half. Then, 11.5 million viewers tuned in for the Sunday results show resulting in an overall average of 9.75 million, which is down by over a million from last year's results show in which poor old James Arthur was crowned the winner.
Watch winner Sam Bailey's winning performance below
To put that in context, 14.1 million viewers tuned in in 2010 to see Matt Cardle being crowned the victor, whereas just 8.1 million tuned in for the show's first final in 2004 in which Steve Brookstein took home the karaoke crown.
Obviously, these figures are rather tiresome, as we go through the same old process every year in which Strictly Come Dancing becomes ever more dominant - this year scraping in 9.9 million views on Saturday. The declining X Factor figures are attributed to Strictly's popularity and while both shows are horribly mind numbing, the X Factor definitely deserves to be pipped on every level.
In order to attempt to halt the declining viewership Simon Cowell has vowed to make his long awaited return to the show, which has sadly had its contract renewed with ITV for three more years.
Below: The most achingly sincere 'real musician' X Factor finalists ever
