Forget the economy, the battle between Labour and Conservative, the international crisis. Forget swine flu. 

In the UK, the big rivalry is between “The X Factor” (the UK’s “American Idol” – watch the new audition format because you’re likely to get it too on AI) on ITV and “Strictly Come Dancing” on the BBC, the original “Dancing With The Stars.” They both go out at teatime on Saturday, absolute prime time. To us viewers it’s a tiny bit daft because you watch one and record, TIVO or “Watch Again” the other one.

“Strictly” goes out live, so it has a tiny advantage and this has helped it. It also has Bruce Forsyth as presenter, and he is also known as “Mr. Saturday Night.” In years gone by Brucie owned Saturday night and it was a huge coup to get him.

This year Strictly scored an own goal by sacking Arlene Phillips as a judge, she of “Starlight Express” and numerous pop and rock videos, multi award winning choreographer, a woman who really knows what she’s talking about but is over 60, with Alisha Dixon, a past winner and ex member of a girl band, pretty, intelligent, but half Arlene’s age. There was an outcry, calls of “ageism” and the press was bad.

The BBC is supported by the licence money, the money everyone who owns a TV set pays to the government. It means we have one ad-free channel and one that can afford to take a risk from time to time in its programming. Strictly and the other popular programs pay for quality offerings like “The Street,” which has just finished its run.

With the fragmentation of audience figures caused by the Freeview channels and cable and satellite, ITV is in trouble. Its numbers are down, advertising revenue is down, savvy advertisers are targeting their TV efforts, maximising their money. So this fight, on and off screen, is absolutely fascinating.

But X Factor started a couple of weeks before Strictly, and it’s got off to a flying start. Last week Danyl and this week Jamie wowed the crowds, with some other great acts thrown in, too. Not a coincidence. Danyl and Jamie deserve to earn a lot of money just because of the way they’ve tipped the balance in the ratings. I do hope they know this. Of course, being contestants, they won’t see a penny directly, but they should grab their chance and run with it, I think. They’re under contract to Cowell, can’t appear on TV anywhere else until the run is up.

But wow, does Cowell know how to tweak. He replaced his aging and troublesome female panel member, Sharon Osbourne, with a couple of younger, prettier women two years ago, and let it look like Sharon’s fault (it could have been, but it’s the appearance, not the reality, that matters in these things). Now he’s changed the audition format to include an audience, a bit like the wildly successful “Britain’s Got Talent.”

As a music entrepreneur and manager he had moderate success. His fellow panellist, Louis Walsh, is far more successful, a ‘boy band’ manager who has turned the raw material into world famous, slick, professional bands. But Cowell discovered his metier fairly early and stuck with it. He started with Nigel Lythgoe, of “So You Think You Can Dance” and Simon Fuller, of The Spice Girls, and these three have had some success in the music field but huge success in making compulsive TV viewing. They rule reality TV right now.

Relevance to publishing and books? – Marginal, but it’s high profile marketing like this that we can’t ignore because of its huge success. And while I know this is trashy TV, I watch it every week. It affects all of us, whether we watch it or not, because it affects the future of TV. If ITV loses, it will have to cut back on productions, rethink its whole strategy. If the BBC loses, it might not be so dire, but there are already calls for the licence fee to be shared, and it will increase pressure on the channel. Without “Strictly” and those other programs, “Pride and Prejudice,” might not have been possible.

The battle between “Strictly Come Dancing” and “The X Factor” is going to be fascinating. I can’t wait.