Davina show flees X Factor

The enormous success of ITV's X Factor has forced the BBC to move its struggling Davina McCall vehicle, He's Having a Baby (HHB) down the schedules.

16:50 07 September 2005

The enormous success of ITV's X Factor has forced the BBC to move its struggling Davina McCall vehicle, He's Having a Baby (HHB) down the schedules.

The pop music talent trek has been trouncing McCall's show about men preparing to become fathers to the extent that BBC bosses have had to shift HHB to an earlier slot.

And McCall has lent her full backing to the show, claiming it's not a dud and people really should try watching it - which all smacks a little of desperation.

Desperate Davina told Heat magazine: "I am 100 per cent behind it. If anybody hasn't watched it, which I think is quite a lot of you, you should give it a go because it's a very good show."

She added: "None of us knew we were going to be up against the X Factor."

"For a new programme that's very different from any other entertainment show on a Saturday night, it was just the worst slot and very, very difficult to handle," she lamented.

Millions of viewers have been luxuriating in the bile being spat out by X Factor's judges this year, most notably the normally soft-centred Louis Walsh, who last week told a girl with arthritis she'd only got through to the second round because she was a "sob story".

Meanwhile, according to McCall, she spends most of the time on HHB, which she describes as a "feel-good programme", just "laughing or crying".