Its a 4 day bank holiday isn't it? Although I'm not sure ITV would want to put their final auditions and selection episode up against Eurovision, I think 2nd June seems most likely.

The concert will be on Monday 4th June. Nothing really planned for the Saturday apart from the Queen attending the Epsom Derby.

Yes, the late May bank holiday (when BGT usually starts its live shows) has been moved to the Tuesday to make a 4 day weekend.

That'd work well for ITV as it'd mean they'd only have four weekdays to cover before Euro 2012 starts and their schedules are thrown up in the air. They could fill them up with extra soap episodes that would be lost to the football, and they'll probably have some Royal programming to air as well.

PTOS will be tape-checked from 22:05 to 22:35 in the overnights. Presumably it was necessary for ITV to start The Royal at 18:58 so they could get in the maximum amount of adverts, even if it meant Popstar to Operastar's Results show finishing at 22:33.

Completely agree about getting it over with before the events in the second half of May/June - there's no point in trying to work around them as even if they got the scheduling sorted they wouldn't get much press coverage (it didn't get that much this year but at least they were talking about a Syco show). They wouldn't even need to lose that hour as they could have a 2 hour show for the final results, with the top 3/5 performing again.

I'd also be tempted to have a 4th live show on the Friday to make it a 4 night weekend for the semis. Not sure how it'd work though as I like the idea of only putting 20 through - 40 is clearly too many. Perhaps they could have 8 per night, so 24 in the live shows + 8 in the YT show. 2 would make it to the final each night so a total of 8. The final 2 places would then be gained through a wildcard special. Each night the act who came in the top 3 but didn't make it to the final would perform again at the end of the show, and the lines would re-open for exactly 5 minutes, just for that act. This would happen each night and then on the Monday all 4 acts would return to the stage and the 2 with the most votes would make it to the final. It'd be something a bit different and would mean they could still have 2 hours per night even though there would only be 8 acts.


I think it's how it worked yeah. The YT auditions over here didn't really throw up too many acts (Pip & Buddy, Up and Over It and Mr & Mrs were the only ones I know of who made it to the semis) but with a bit more publicity I think they could find a few more to make up the 8. It would shake things up a bit and could throw up some acts who would never normally appear on the show, so would be worth doing.


Agree again, there hasn't really been any momentum in the live week since 2009 and 40 acts is too many. The results shows were a bit better this year but they were still unnecessary and the guests generally weren't good enough again. All in all, they were pointless.

Appreciation Index for w.c. May 23

Monday May 23 at 9pm
ITV1 Strangeways 86.9
C5 The Hotel Inspector 84.4
BBC1 Super Size Ambulance 83.0
C4 Gordon's Great Escape 82.9
BBC2 All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace 78.8

Tuesday May 24 at 9pm
C5 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 89.5
BBC1 Crimewatch 87.8
ITV1 Home Is Where the Heart Is 86.1
BBC2 The Country House Revealed 83.3
C4 The Secret Millionaire 82.5

Wednesday May 25 at 9pm
C5 NCIS 90.6
C4 24 Hours in A&E 90.0
ITV1 Midsomer Murders 86.4
BBC1 The Apprentice 85.9
BBC2 RHS Chelsea Flower Show 85.3

Thursday May 26 at 9pm
BBC1 Inside the Human Body 90.8
ITV1 Long Lost Family 89.5
BBC2 The Shadow Line 88.2
C5 Extreme Fishing with Robson Green: At the Ends of the Earth 84.6
C4 Breaking a Female Paedophile Ring 83.7

Friday May 27 at 9pm
C5 The Mentalist 89.2
BBC1 HIGNFY / Outnumbered (R) 85.6
ITV1 Paul O'Grady Live 84.5
BBC2 Paul Merton's Birth of Hollywood 83.9
C4 The Million Pound Drop Live 82.5

Saturday May 28 at 10pm
C5 CSI: New York 90.8
BBC2 Have I Got A Bit More News For You 85.6
C4 The Million Pound Drop Live 80.6

Interesting to note that BGT's ratings last night were both lower than the performance and results shows of Strictly Come Dancing's final last December.

SCD figures;

Performance show: 12.70m (45.8%)
Results show: 13.08m (47.6%)

Thank for posting the AI figures, Dancc. Those are good figures for the American crime dramas. Have I Got News For You was consistent!

There is nothing broken about BGT finals week so why are you attempting to fix it.

The current format retains momentum even if it no longer grows, having gaps in between semis and finals could lose momentum as people forget who is actually in the finals.

The over analysis of the BGT sandwich slot last night is getting a bit tiresome. They would be damned if they do in any possible case. When the whole night is about BGT, anything else would just be lost. A comedy pilot might actually ruin the evening if it turned out not very good.

Oh Please. i know you love the BBC But why did you have to bring this up.

The only evening that should be taken is with the Party In The Palace. Sunday's flotilla on the Thames and Tuesday's Thanksgiving service are daytime. So apart from ensuring news bulletins aren't too short and not too late then plenty of scope for all channels to be imaginative if they want Sat/Sun/Tue

Be interesting to see if the BBC manage to fit Eastenders in on the Monday, and how much of a fight ITV put up - in particular with the soaps due to be shunted all over the place for Euro 2012, will they want to remove them from the Monday as well?

Those figures show that airing in December compared to June obviously makes quite a difference in terms of no. of people available watching TV as both those shares were lower than BGT's. Not gonna happen for obvious reasons, but hypothetically I wonder how a BGT final would rate airing in December rather than June. Quite a bit higher I suspect.

In terms of the Top 10 Chart of The Year, I think it'll be quite close between BGT and SCD this year. I don't expect SCD to rate as well as last year's series/final due to no Widecombe factor and looking at its previous finale ratings, its 2nd best final rating was 12.2m in 2008. So if it manages something like that later this year, it'll be close to what BGT managed last night and basically come down to which one timeshifts more in terms of higher chart position.

That is interesting but the SCD final was in December the week before Christmas whilst BGT's was during a June heatwave. Very different circumstances so it's a credit to BGT that it was so close.

Just shows how well Strictly did. Britain's Got Talent's figures are not awful by any stretch of the imagination but it certainly did not perform wonderfully yesterday. Briatin's Got Talent's share for the final is higher than Strictly Come Dancing's 2010 performance.

And yet Britain's Got Talent averaged 11.8m for it's two and a half hour final last year while Strictly Come Dancing 2009 could 'only' achieve a 11.4m peak for it's final show.

You say SCD will be down due to "no Widdecombe factor" but we don't yet know who will be appearing on the next series, so it's a bit premature to be forecasting a decline IMO. Casting will be key.

Which also applies to the new TXF judging panel, but we've already had 100 pages forecasting that show's decline!

I agree. If they somehow manage get to Boris Johnson dancing, for example, then it'll perform very well.

It just needs that perfect joke act to carry the show through. The X Factor have it down to an art form with the likes of Jedward and Wagner (and Louis' the only judge who can get away with it IMO, hence he needed to be kept on) and Strictly struck gold with Ann Widdecombe. Now they need to find another.

It's not so much a case of trying to fix it as trying to make it better. Especially as the only shows which benefit from BGT right now are Life Stories and Coronation Street.

Plus, there are scheduling issues next year anyway.

I'm also confident in viewers ability to remember who is in the finals! Actually, with Sat/Sun auditions, the show runs for fewer weeks than it does just now.

Just find it interesting how in 2009 BGT was around 6m ahead in terms viewers and now SCD is now seemingly more popular.

I don't envisage there being a contestant this upcoming series who will cause viewers/newspapers/media to talk about them (and the show) as much as Widdy did last year and to capture the public's imagination at the magnitude it was last year. It's difficult to see that happening. We'll see, but I will happily predict that all three of SCD, TXF and IAC will be down compared to last year for various reasons, the main one being that all three of them rated so highly last year (record highs/highest in years) that it would be very tough to build on those audiences even further.

What if I'm A Celeb got Jedward this year - aren't they ratings gold ? After what they did for Eurovision.

Yeah but 2009 was the Susan Boyle year. That won't ever happen again

Scott and Bailey and Popstar to Operastar also saw a boost of sorts. Whether they'll benefit, we'll probably have to wait til tomorrow to find out. I agree, it'd be nice if Briutain's Got Talent could be used to promote a new long term drama/comedy.