Saturday night season is nearly upon us, when bosses of 'Strictly Come Dancing' and 'The X Factor' battle for audience affection and loyalty every weekend.
ITV bosses have fired the first salvo in this year's competition, announcing today that they will be releasing their start times for the whole series, in their attempt to avoid schedule schedule clashes with the BBC.
ITV controller Peter Fincham said at the Edinburgh TV Festival, "We're going to publish all the start times this autumn.
"Our audiences don't want them to overlap. Whether the BBC responds to that is up to them."
X Factor kicks off this weekend with new judges Nick Grimshaw and Rita Ora joining vets Simon Cowell, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini
This decision came following the ITV chief's frustration when the rival networks had made initial plans not to clash for Saturday week's programmes - Strictly's launch and X Factor's third audition show - and then 'Strictly' had been moved later, so there was a 20-minute overlap.
"This really matters to us because we are a commercial business," said Peter Fincham. "It's a bit of a game to them."
BBC One chief Danny Cohen justified the moving of BBC shows on Saturday evenings, saying, "Some of our timings are influenced by live sporting events.
"These things happen all the time. There is to-ing and fro-ing. Some of these clashes happen, we try to work our way through."
Gentlemen... two words: Sky Plus.
