The much-hyped appearance of the former Labour shadow chancellor on Strictly Come Dancing helped the BBC draw in a record number of viewers to the show for a series debut.
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Wearing a suitably glittering shirt, Balls, 49, twisted and writhed around the 27 year-old from St Petersburg, during the first group dance.
“It was pretty tough and thank God I had Lou”, she continued. Instead, we should all just submit that the dance competition is probably going to always win, and the best thing that the singing show can hope to do is stay consistent.
The opening night episode, in which the 15 celebrities discover which dancers they are paired with, attracted an average of 9.3 million viewers (46.4 % share) and a peak of 10.1 million, the highest for a launch show since the series began in 2004.
ED BALLS will be strutting his stuff with a “fierce and fabulous” new Russian dancer, Daisy Lowe cha-cha-chaing with previous victor Aljaz Skorjanec and Laura Whitmore with newly single Giovanni Pernice in the new series of Strictly Come Dancing.
The figures beat Strictly’s 8.7 million viewers in 2015, which pipped The X Factor to the top spot in last year’s ratings battle.
The figures come after The X Factor suffered its lowest launch ratings in 10 years – despite a revamp by Simon Cowell.
ITV’s launch show last weekend was watched by 6.8 million (34% share) with a peak of 7.5 million.
But the ITV talent show’s audience rose by 1.5m compared to last Saturday.
Strictly Come Dancing goes live with back-to-back shows on BBC1 on Friday September 23 and Saturday September 24.
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However, The Great British Bake Off, which averaged 13.6 million viewers in its launch episode on 24 August, remains the most watched show this year.
