Strictly Come Dancing drew almost half the TV audience last night as ratings for the grand final were up on the previous year - and beat this year's X Factor finale.
At its height, an audience of 14 million was watching the BBC1 show as Louis Smith gyrated to victory in the tenth series of the hit show.
An average audience of 12.4 million was watching the main show, up on the 12.2 million which had watched the programme in 2011.
It accounted for 49% of the TV audience throughout its 85-minute run, and it was 1.3 million ahead of the audience for The X Factor final a fortnight ago.
The ITV1 show has tended to win a higher audience for its final until this year's ratings disaster.
Strictly's later results show last night pulled in 11.9 million viewers which was a shade below 12 million who watched the winner being crowned last .