After BGT has proven to be a success over the past couple of years, I'm still surprised by how rushed it all is. I was wondering if anyone else agrees that there's a very odd progression between the audition shows and the semi finals.

If ITV need to squeeze this show around Simon Cowells American Idol and X Factor line up, why not play around with the schedule a little more? I often watch the semi's and wonder why a certain act was chosen as a semi finalist when other acts who IMO were stronger, got left behind. Having the semi's on consecutive night feels so rushed and I still think it's unfair to have someone peform in the semi's on friday and then have to prepare for the finals the next night.

I'd much rather they showed 2 audition shows a week - one on sat and one on sun. Then they can have 1 show which delves deeper into the selection process and then start the semis. Most importantly, leave a week between the last semi and the final.

As I said, it's just odd that we get 7 (?) weeks of auditions and then a majorly rushed week of semi's and the final.

The best idea I've read in this forum is for each semi to be a different category. So one for singers, one for dancers, one for musical instruments, one for comedy performances, one for stunts like quick change, escapology and magic and may be a general one for things like animal acts and bizarre stuff.

The final would be made out of the first two from each category and may be a wild card performance which had the highest third placed percentage of the vote in its category.

I think that would be more appropriate for a variety show and would encourage more magicians and comedy acts etc to come forward.

I think they will drag it out over a longer period now as BGT has become a bigger ratings winner than X Factor. ITV has been getting half the TV audience at times.

I think the suggestion that each semi final focuses on a particular talent is my favourite idea too. Then the public really could decide who was the best singer, the best dancers, the best comedy act, magician etc... and it would also mean that the final would definitely be a good variety show.

I'd also like to see the public vote count for the whole of the semi finals, and not let the judges vote at all. If the public pays their money to vote for who they want to see in the finals, why should the judges decide that perhaps the third place contestant should go through instead of the second placed? That in itself is just a way for the producers and the judges to fix who they see in the finals.

On that note, why is it that before each announcement of who is going through to the finals, there's always a man who is talking to Simon? Is he telling him the results so that they are prepared for their selection in advance, or is something more sinister going on?

Interesting about not letting the judges vote. Diversity would have gone out to Natalie in the first semi. That might have been the will of the middle aged mums, grans etc who prefer cute singers to urban dance outfits but would the public at large have thought that was right?

I would have liked to see three acts go through out of each this weeks semi finals followed by a Final of 15 acts.

The third person I would have chosen out of each semifinal would have been:

1. Susan Boyle & Diversity - Natalie
2. Flawless & Shaheen - MD Showgroup
3. Stavros Flately & Shaun Smith - Gareth (ventriloquist)
4. Julian Smith & Grand 2 - Callum

Hopefully tonight Greg & Aidan - Holly

I like the catagory idea too and also a place up for grabs for the under 16's in The Children's Royal Variety Show.

I don't think the judges should be allowed to use their buzzers in the semis, they picked them because they thought they were good enough to be there so they should be allowed to do the whole of their act. Also how can the public vote for an act when they're not allowed to see the whole thing?

Totally agree with that. I felt rather sorry for Brit Chicks.

Agree as well. All it does is play to the judges' egos.

WE need better judging and someway of stopping the daft viewers votes that put acts with no talent through

That's a great idea.

After ten minutes I would have a big screen flashing "Get off your arse and go up the Leas. I am bored."

Big Brother is even worse.

But what is there to show of the selection process? Nothing happens apart from the producers/judges just sit around talking about who would make an entertaining live show. They can’t even show us much of the unedited conversation because it would go something like:

“So we all agree that this guy is terrible and will never win, but people will talk about him, or people will vote for him based on his sob story” etc.

There aren’t any auditions to show at that stage. People can’t be expected to have two routines prepared within a short space of time, and most of the acts are only entertaining once, so there is no way there could be a second round of performances between first auditions and the live show. Many of the acts aren’t even entertaining enough to be seen once, hence they show very little footage of them from the audition stage on TV.

I think the format is fine, personally. Having all the live shows together in one week makes perfect sense, both from a production point of view (it would be a lot more expensive having the set up for weeks than for just one week) and also from an entertainment point of view (having all the finals in one week gives the show a sense of occasion and makes it more of a phenomenon. I think it’s great.

The only thing I would change about the show would be to make it far less tacky and cliched. I HATE the intros, with the dramatic choral music and the swooshing and the ridiculous voice-over and every single performance being “make or break”, and the crying, and the heartbeat sound effects and the flashing lights and the sped-up camera tracking. It is nausiating in every sense of the word, and one “X Factor” is more than enough.

Oh and why do they have adult singing acts? That is stupid when we have The X Factor. Anyone auditioning should be told to come back for The X Factor.

Next year they should just have 2 semi finals of 10 acts each !!!

The idea of having 5 semi - finals is a waste of MY time to be honest.

Every night I have been able to pick the TOP 3 easily because there has been so much rubbish filling each night's show out.



Luckily I have been able to SKYplus the semis and simply fast forward through the crap acts and adverts to the decent performers .

At least 10 of the acts so far have been an insult to the British viewers - in my opinion


Also let the viewers choose who is in the semi finals - that way we won't get all the crap we have had this year !!

I think they should limit the rubbish but funny acts to the heats and only put through people with genuine talent. Let two from each eight in the semi go through to the final and have one wild card entry from the remaining contestants across the week.

All child contestants are to be as viciously assessed as the adults.

Never was there ever a contestant more deserving of three buzzes than Callum Francis last night. I would've buzzed his ass into oblivion.

Thats such a good idea!!
Then they can put through an equal amount of singers, dancers, musical acts etc.

Perhaps someone could email it to BGMT and Stephan can ask Simon!!!!

Sorry, I'm getting a bit over the top

Also the order of the acts performances should be completley random.

But then you're forcing the judges to pick people just to fill up categories, possibly at the expense of other acts. This is what happens with X Factor when they try to fill up the always unpopular groups category.

Everybody knows you get many more talented singers and dancers than you do anything else. Say you wanted 8 in each category, you could end up with the scenario of having 12 good singers but only 4 good general acts, so you have to throw out 4 good singers but find another 4 general acts just to make up the numbers. At least the current way ensures all 16 good acts go through. You could have each category with different numbers in an effort to limit to only the good acts, but then everyone will be crying "unfair!"

I think the current format is the best, all things considered.

I think they should adopt several features of the America's Got Talent format: results of the night after the performances, additional live rounds (I think in America 40 are cut to 20, 20 are cut to 10, 10 are cut to 5 and then 5 perform in the final), buzzes in the live performances, but no cutting the act short even if all three buzzers go off.

I think there should be an outright ban on reprising an audition performance in the final, and they should seriously rethink the number of joke/talentless acts they let through. It should be 5 (one per semi-final), not 25.

I'd like it if the introduced a talent-off(?) between the two runners up in each semi-final like the sing-off in X-Factor, and like X-Factor they should not be able to repeat the act they just did. Not sure if this is practical for some of the novelty/magic acts though.

Finally, I'd like to see far less bad auditions. Seriously, they took up 70% of the audition time this year - each episode had at most two full auditions by talented people, one collage of the other good auditions and about seven long and drawn out joke auditions.

1. Have a certain number of dance, singing acts in the semi final! No more than 2 i'd say.

2. Should have include a quarter final stage whereby only the judges would vote. 12 acts would go to the semi finals.

3. The 12 acts split into 6, so we'd have semi final 1 and 2 on two seaprate nights with 3 acts in each semi final going through to the final. Only the judges votes would count at this stage.

4. In the final the judges would have to vote for the 2 favourite acts in which the public would have to vote for the winner.

You don't sound like a fan of democracy!

I watch very little of the auditions but love how the live stages are nightly, I watch all of these . It makes it far more exciting and increases the ratings imo.

Replace ‘buzzed’ with another word, and that’s exactly how I feel about certain female contestants!