The new series of The XFactor launched to 9.9 million viewers last night, according TV Sources.

The opening episode of series six, which saw the introduction of a Britain’s Got Talent-style public audition format, averaged 9.91m (47.9%) for ITV1 between 7pm and 8.30pm. The audience is down slightly on the previous series, which averaged 10.19m (48.2%) on August 16 last year.

Last night the ratings peaked with a hefty 11.64m (52.2%) at 8.20pm.

ITV2 spinoff show The Xtra Factor also performed well, averaging 1.15m (6.2%) over an hour from 8.30pm. A further 190k (1.1%) watched on timeshift.

After The X Factor on ITV1, new Phillip Schofield-fronted gameshow The Cube made an admirable debut, averaging 5.52m (26.7%) between 8.30pm and 9.30pm.

BBC One’s Total Wipeout logged 2.68m (14.5%) from 6.40pm, a significant fall from last week’s 4.23m (24.7%). The audience then dropped to 2.22m (10.4%) for The National Lottery: Guesstimation, after which the draw itself managed 3.2m (14.7%). A rerun of Outnumbered put in 3.27m (15.8%) from 8.30pm, then Michael McIntyre: Live & Laughing had a decent 4.65m (23%).

Continuing coverage of The Proms averaged 845k (4.2%) for BBC Two between 8.10pm and 10.30pm.

On Channel 4, a double bill of ER put in just 307k (1.5%) and 449k (2.1%) from 7.10pm. At 9pm, the latest update from Big Brother interested 1.43m (7.1%) and a further 241k (1.5%) on Channel 4+1.

Five’s NCIS had 1.34m (6.3%) in the 8pm hour, then CSI grew the audience to 1.89m (9.3%). Law & Order: SVU brought in 1.37m (7.8%) at 10pm, then Law & Order: Criminal Intent closed off the night with 961k (7.6%).

Overall, ITV1 led primetime with an average audience share of 30% to BBC One’s 18.5%. BBC Two was third with 7.5%, followed by Five with 6.9% and Channel 4 with 4.5% (+1: 0.5%).

Ratings data supplied by Attentional

X Factor favourite Danyl Johnson has revealed he not only fancies Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole… but also has the hots for Simon Cowell.

The 27-year-old dance and drama teacher gave the two girl judges a cheeky wink during his mind-blowing performance in last night’s live show.

But he said he’s a “free spirit” who dates women AND men, admitting that he thinks all the judges are good-looking…even Louis Walsh.

He said: “I don’t like to conform or be put into one box or another and if I’m honest all the judges are good-looking. If I like someone’s personality it doesn’t really matter what they look like or what sex they are.

“Dannii and Cheryl are both beautiful and I’m a bit cheeky, so I played up to them a bit during the performance to get them on my side.

“I suppose if I had to choose, I’d prefer Dannii because she’s got a great personality. I reckon you could have a good night out with her – she’d be up for dancing and a laugh. I would love to have her as my mentor so I could get to know her a bit better.”

Bisexual Danyl’s stunning rendition of Joe Cocker’s version of With A Little Help From My Friends wowed an estimated 10million viewers last night – making him an early favourite to win the show.

Simon, 49, described it as the best audition he’d ever seen. He added: “I think he could be one of the best contestants we have ever had.”

Louis, 57, was equally impressed, saying: “The kids at your school will be very proud. Thank God you came in.” And Cheryl told him: “You’re a natural performer. I’d take you in my category any day.”

Amazingly, Danyl didn’t even plan his show-stopping audition in front of 2,000 screaming fans at London’s O2 arena. He said: “I just couldn’t believe the reaction I got from the judges. I didn’t know whether they were going to let me do that song, it could have been one of three.

“I decided to jump around a bit and got carried away because the audience got carried away, I was just feeding off them. I’m glad they liked me because if they hadn’t it would have been horrible.”

After Simon’s glowing comments, Danyl, of Reading, Berks, seems a shoe-in for the finals. But he said he refuses to take anything for granted.