X Factor bubbles to top of talent pool

THE X Factor jumped to the top of the pile again last night with its best Monday ratings since its launch week.

X Factor contestant Joelle.

THE X Factor jumped to the top of the pile again last night with its best Monday ratings since its launch week.

After Nine's Australia Got Talent pushed the talent contest on Sunday night, The X Factor rose to 1.495 million viewers in the five capital cities, helping Seven win Monday night with a 23.1 per cent share in all people.

That was ahead of Nine's 22.2 per cent channel share, despite Nine News ranking second for the night with 1.347m viewers and the final episode of Hamish & Andy's Gap Year Asia concluding with 1.299m, its best result in four weeks but off its opening three week audience of 1.4m-plus.

Nine News stretched its lead over Seven News in Melbourne to 142,000 but Seven News won in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

A Current Affair recorded its best result since the first week of July (1.255m) against Today Tonight's 1.058 million.

Among other channels, ABC1 registered a 13.8 per cent channel share against Ten's 11.0 per cent. GO! was the best multichannel with a 4.6 per cent share ahead of SBS ONE's 4.3 per cent

ABC1's Media Watch (655,000) and Four Corners (738,000) were well up on previous weeks although Australian Story was down (767,000). The debate between federal treasurer Chris Bowen and aspiring treasurer Joe Hockey on Q&A recorded 617,000 viewers, almost right on its season average in 2013.

Preliminary OzTAM ratings, Monday 19 August

1 THE X FACTOR Seven 1,495,000

2 NINE NEWS Nine 1,347,000

3 HAMISH & ANDY'S GAP YEAR ASIA Nine 1,299,000

4 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,269,000

5 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,255,000

6 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,058,000

7 HOME AND AWAY Seven 983,000

8 BIG BROTHER Nine 910,000

9 ABC NEWS ABC1 889,000

10 MR SELFRIDGE Seven 789,000

11 AUSTRALIAN STORY ABC1 767,000

12 7.30 ABC1 744,000

13 MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA Ten 742,000

14 FOUR CORNERS ABC1 738,000

15 HOT SEAT Nine 689,000