Simon Cowell and ITV finally throw in the towel in BGT v Voice ratings battle – wonders will never cease
ITV will screen Britain’s Got Talent later on Saturday following a beating from BBC rival The Voice
That whooping, cheering and general celebratory racket that you can hear right now is coming from the direction of the BBC, where those mythical creatures known as ‘bosses’ are having a right old knees up at the news ITV has finally decided it doesn’t want Britain’s Got Talent to clash with The Voice any longer.
After three weeks of a talent show crossover, which saw BGT start 20 minutes before The Voice had finished,
this week’s TV scheduling reveals Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, David Walliams and Alesha Dixon will be seen at 8.30pm on Saturday instead of 8pm.ITV assumed viewers would switch channels when BGT started and ditch the BBC’s new show, featuring coaches Jessie J, Tom Jones, Will.i.am and Danny O’Donoghue. But each week ratings showed that more were still watching The Voice.
Last Saturday BGT attracted 6.2million viewers during the overlap compared to The Voice’s 10million.
See no evil, hear no evil, well, that's no strictly true
BBC
The BBC pretty much caused the outbreak of handbags at dawn TV ratings war by launching their rival show in the spring, when BGT traditionally airs, ITV decided to bring the new series with Simon forward for a head to head battle.
Although ITV will ignore the whole backing down issue and point to the fact the show peaked at 11.9million last week, while The Voice saw 10.7million at its peak, this latest move is bound to benefit both channels, with viewers no longer having to choose between the two.
An ITV spokesman said: “At its peak, 11.9 million people watched Britain's Got Talent this weekend; the highest recorded audience figure on any channel, so far this month.
"Viewing figures for BGT are up year-on-year. By moving to 8.30pm we are ensuring that as many people as possible have the opportunity to watch the show in full."
Just as we thought.
A BBC insider meanwhile commented: “The BBC always wanted to avoid any overlap but rather than killing The Voice as ITV had hoped, it was instead damaging BGT. It's no surprise they moved it given last week's ratings."
Puffed out chests and statistical bamboozling aside, at least this means we can all just enjoy both shows in full now, which is all we wanted to do in the first place.
Bron