ONCE a week thousands of Gladstone residents have been sitting down in front Channel Nine's The Block and are probably unaware that one of their biggest stars is from here.

On Monday night more than 7000 people watched The Block in Fitzroy region and would have noticed judge Darren Palmer critique the contestants' last room reveal.

Well, that sought-after interior designer grew up in Gladstone.

At the age of 17 Darren left Gladstone to study in Rockhampton before moving to fine art and design.

From there he moved to Brisbane to work in advertising and graphic design.

He ended up in Sydney and transitioned from being a graphic designer to an interior designer and has gone from strength to strength since.

But even with some local talent on the box, more people are interested in watching Channel 7's The X-Factor with 25,000 people in Fitzroy tuning in.

That was the highest rating show for that time slot, up 6000 from the week before.

ABC's 7.30 Report also had a spike in viewers this week, up to 13,000 from 7000.

The block was down 8000 viewers on the Monday night before as was Channel Nine's new show Hyde & Seek. Fitzroy viewers watched Hyde & Seek show in force last week with 17,000 sets of eyes on the premiere. But a week later and 8000 viewers had turned to something else.

Overall the Fitzroy region follows the Queensland trend that most people have been watching The X Factor.

But we like a little bit more of a national broadcaster but if ABC is taken out of the equation the trend continues.

Block is the second most popular, followed by Australian Survivor and then SBS News.

But there is no competition when it comes to what is the most popular show of all, Channel 7's Home and Away receives 30,000 Fitzroy viewers a night.

See tomorrow's Observer for a Q&A with Darren Palmer