Well, quite.

In fairness Sharon, Sheila, Susan, whatever it was, did at least become a well-known name.

She bucked the trend. Can anyone, hand on heart, and without Google, list the TXF and BGT winners from recent years?

At a quiz night the other week, one of our questions was to name the winners of TXF and BGT 2010. Hardly anyone got a point for that one...

Robbie Please Tell me i would Love to know why you Love the BBC And hate ITV. If a Program on BBC 1 Got 8.2m you be saying how great it was why not with ITV 1 Then?

No maximum ad break length rule on ITV2. An extra minute in each of the five breaks, no doubt.

A peak audience of 11.9 million viewers (inc +1) watched last night's @GotTalent . The live semi-finals start tonight #itvpresscentre

Source: ITV Press Centre
-------------------------------------
That's the joint highest peak for BGT this year, episode 4 also peaked at 11.9m (that ep averaged 10.4m inc +1). Yesterday's rating also looks set to be up year-on-year compared to the equivalent episode in 2010.

Average of around ~10.5m for BGT last night I think.

Looks like BGT did as well as expected last night in a different slot. The weather is completely miserable today so I think it could peak at 12m+.

Amanda Holden will be grinning from ear to ear no doubt!

Impressive start for Scott & Bailey... just curious to see how badly everything else did at 9pm now.

Will be interesting to see how well ITV News did at Ten as well. With presumably a ~7m lead-in and no news opposition on BBC1, surely it must have had at least 4/4.5m?

It's not uncommon for ITV News to do well and often beat BBC News on a Sunday.

It's a completely different story during the week. Looking at BARB, even during the mega performing BGT week last year, ITV News didn't manage any wins over BBC News. (edit- came close on the Monday, but it was a Bank Holiday anyway with shorter bulletins)

From Twitter:

jakehumphreyf1
After the glam of Monaco, off to the garden centre in Twickenham! 4 million #bbcf1 viewers on Saturday and over 6 million yesterday! #thanks
3 minutes ago

They'll be peaks, will be interesting to see the programme average yesterday for the F1. Given their poor 9pm rating presumably, the F1 might well have been their highest rating yesterday.

If they go for Christmas number one TXF Final will be on the 18th as this year the number one will be on Christmas Day itself. I'd have thought ITV will go for that option - saves them that awkward weekend before Christmas and I'd imagine TXF USA will be well and truly wrapped up by then so Cowell will probably be parachuted in for the final (and perhaps semi-final).

Only negative would be Strictly will almost certainly have their final that weekend too - but really if they go head to head in the weeks before that, one more week won't hurt.


Cheryl no - hence why they're in no hurry to sign her up again. Dannii and Cowell yes.

Didn't see that coming - thought it would get around 5m at best. It just shows though that when ITV use their big shows wisely they can really boost other parts of the schedule as I doubt it would have launched so highly if they'd left it a week to air off the back of Popstar to Operastar.

Yep, this is main reason why I was thinking TXF might have its final on 10/11th rather than 17/18th December this year. The Strictly final will most likely be on 17th December (I can't see them having it on Christmas Eve) so would they want the final TXF performance shows and SCD final results shows clashing against each other? I wouldn't think so. Also if TXF Final Results show is on 18th December it'd probably face Sports Personality of the Year which put a dent in TXF's final average in 2009 compared to what it'd have been capable of.


I think there's a strong case for ITV to have more episodes of BGT on Sunday. Something like splitting the series on Saturdays and Sundays (4 episodes each night for the series) would be better IMO because these 9pm Sunday night dramas are really taking advantage of the TXF/BGT/DOI lead-ins whereas on Saturdays, it's not like Life Stories is doing particularly well. Giving the expensive 9pm dramas the best lead-ins should be more of a priority than boosting a show like Life Stories which is cheap and hasn't been rating anymore than 4.5m recently anyway.

Didn't they set a deadline for her to accept? Sounds pretty hurried to me. Wasn't Cheryl the one creating the majority of the headlines last year? i.e. Gamu-gate, refusing to vote, etc. She's a big loss in that sense, even though I'm personally not a fan of hers. Also the Cowell/Cole chemistry was supposed to be one of the main reasons why people watched in such huge numbers. The virtually all new panel will have its work cut out recreating that, and the atmosphere could be terrible initially with Tulisa and Kelly in particular fearing for their jobs in case they don't impress the producers.

It must surely be worth ITV's while to move BGT completely to Sunday and sacrifice Saturday nights in favour of the boost to Sundays. BGT would surely rate even higher on a Sunday than it does on a Saturday and not only do expensive dramas need the boost more than low-cost Life Stories but they're quite clearly better able to get the boost.

If they do go down that road, it paves the way for the BBC (or someone else) to launch The Voice on Saturday nights in Q1/Q2 next year.

Courtesy of spaintv on the Broadcasting forum:


Source & more: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...4&postcount=68

The Voice is 95% certain to be on BBC1. It is only a matter of crossing the t's and dotting the i's.

It is likely to launch the same day as next year's Doctor Who series.

Yes, but as most BGT Saturday night shows only last 1 hour there's still room for BBC1 to launch The Voice. They just go with the schedule they had when SYTYCD started with the Lottery show sacrificed against BGT.

I'm sure the ITV accountants must be able to calculate which scheduling is most profitable for ITV

Does anyone have a top 20 chart for the overnights for this year so far? It would be interesting to see how the ratings differ from the official ratings

Sure there's still room, but there is a greater chance of The Voice taking off in a big way if it has a free run on Saturdays. That's why I find it hard to believe that ITV1 would just roll over so easily. But who knows, they do some truly baffling things sometimes.

With both BGT and TXF they could easily have the auditions over four weekends - and indeed with BGT they could probably go to five weekends by fleshing out the call back section and having all acts performs again. Of course though the Champions League complicates things slightly, especially if it's just before the live shows - but then again they could have just finished the audition shows last weekend then had the semi-finals this week. Indeed arguably having an entire week to build up the semi-finals is better than having them start the next night.


And similarly with The X Factor it would surely be better to have shows on Sunday rather than launch the series in the middle of August. Crucially though in both cases the benefits of moving to Sunday far outweigh the loss to Saturdays - between them they can have an extra 6-8 shows on Sundays, but only really lose 3-4 editions on Saturdays. And as you say, the lead out is of far more use on a Sunday.

Although the rugby complicates things slightly I think the BBC would want The Voice on air before Britain's Got Talent began anyway. I wouldn't advocate moving BGT completely to Sunday, so it still means ITV have a stranglehold on Saturdays for 4-5 weeks anyway.

P.S. BBC2 likely to rip up their schedule later this afternoon and put Andy Murray on.
https://twitter.com/#!/piersnewbery/...12452710346752

Definitely. The rating for S&B is huge and I didn't think I'd see another drama apart from Downton or Doc Martin getting an overnight of 8m+ at all this year. Downton, Doc Martin and Wild At Heart all perform excellently with a big entertainment lead in and ITV should capitalise on this. It would also boost Sundays a lot and they could launch more dramas here-perhaps having one get a BGT lead in on the Sunday, then continue on the Monday. Then another remaining on the Sunday.

Even though S&B will have a predictable drop next week, it looks promising for ITV's Sunday June schedule as it doesn't really matter how The Royal rates and Popstar should at least be up on last series. I'm expecting at least 4.5m every week really.

The Voice would appear to be a great chance for the BBC to establish a talent format, but given their history I do rather doubt it will be done justice. Who will be on it? If the name of Barrowman appears within a hundred miles of the credits they might as well not bother, add to that anyone they have had on a panel in the last five years. Just finding a singer is not enough and they are going to have to break alot of lazy habits to make it work. Also it needs to be set away from XF and BGT-quarter one would work -it would work best for Dr Who too imo but they still bang it in where its swallowed up by everything from the weather to BGT to football and Eurovision.

Imagine what would happen if it was axed then. The redtops would go into mourning and some saddo might bombard ITV with death threats as happened when Channel 4 cancelled BB. However, just as Pop Idol passed with little comment and is barely mentioned now, I think the same would happen with TXF, something else on the same lines would replace it.