Yes, he's managed to get Voice all over the front pages of this morning's red top tabloids. Voice wouldn't have launched this high without all the publicity Cowell has gifted it over the last two weeks.

ITV need to gaffer tape his gob shut this week.

Both came in above expectations last night (BGT about 400k higher exc +1 and TV about 700k higher exc +1). In theory, ITV should be quite relieved with that. In general, BGT's performance vs last year was pretty good (10.1m for the "non-Voice" hour). But as ever, ITV have shot themselves in the foot. Does anyone believe that Take Me Out benefitted significantly to make it worth the 3m loss in that first 15 minutes of BGT? Jonathan Ross certainly didn't. And of course, another Sunday morning where it's the BBC who are setting the press agenda. Q: "When is a win not a win?" A: "When the ITV PR department doesn't work on a Sunday?".

Next week is probably the biggest threat for ITV/BGT and once again their scheduling sets it up nicely for the BBC. It's quite remarkable that ITV pay people to do this. All it takes is a standard week 2 fall for BGT and a rise for The Voice (which seems quite possible) and suddenly you've got a proper week 2 win for the BBC.

Just to prove it wasnt only the DS poll that The Voice won by a landslide, it got 79% of vote on the Mirrors website: http://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/3am-...-editor-771883

Also The Suns poll, a website which loves Cowell, comments page is full of praise for The Voice: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...ote-nowbr.html

Maybe Im getting carried away but I really have good feeling its ratings will go up next week like whats gone on in America.

It seems likely that ITV have scored a massive own goal by directing so much fire at The Voice.

Had they allowed it to go out on its own it would probably have launched a good million lower than this. Instead they've helped it to launch at a level where it is a genuine threat to BGT.

People still believing every single word printed in the tabloids


Maybe people might, and this is an extreme viewpoint, erm, watch both?

I'm sure ratings wars used to be when programmes were on at the same time, like Breakfast v Daybreak. Now it seems it is also when programmes are on at different times, or even months apart. (People apparantly now think The X Factor is rubbish and aren't going to watch anymore because The Voice is better. Interesting opinion but liking The Voice isn't going to be worth much in the Autumn, when it isn't on!)

Do we know what the schedule is for The Voice, i.e how many weeks of which type of round and when the final is likely to be, is there likely to be a seperate results show, how does it all fit around BGT's live shows?

Apologies if this has already been noted, but here's the ratings for the two non-clash periods:

The Voice - 8.26m (38.08%)
Britain's Got Talent - 10.32m (43.11%)

24.6 million people were watching during the clash period - 21.7 million people were watching between 19:00 and 20:00, with 23.9 million people were watching between 20:20 and 21:20.

But if the voice gets more popular, it means the 20-minute overlap into bgt will hurt bgt even more. Look at last nights launch, bgt got 6.5m against the Voice. If Voice goes up next week, bgt could be down to 6m. Its a massive problem for Cowell.


Live shows are starting on April 29th. I think theres gonna be 3 audition shows, 2 battle shows, 6 live shows. Final on June 2nd.

BGTs final is gonna clash against one of The Voice's live shows so instantly the BGT final aint gonna rate as well as last year.

Not really because millions still tuned in and watched the rest of the programme. It only becomes a 'massive problem' if missing the start causes viewers to not bother watching at all.

What is a battle round exactly and how does the spinning chair format work in the live shows?

Had ITV ran BGT 20 minutes later it would probably have been up on last year's launch, which considering how last year went for BGT and especially X Factor is quite surprising. A shame ITV are scheduling like this - maybe now they've seen how big The Voice could be they'll change their minds for week 3 but I'm not holding my breath. Agree that their PR department is very poor and also that next week could be fatal. I can't see BGT losing a million next week like it did for the second episode last year, but even so it may slip just below 9m (exc +1), so if The Voice grows (which I think it might) it'll probably end up with a higher average (exc +1 for BGT - I can't see it topping BGT with +1), which would look very bad for ITV (even though BGT will probably be pretty similar to last year with +1).

April 7th sees a 90 minute Take Me Out (the last in the series) so the chances of BGT shifting later that night look slim, and with The Voice unlikely to shrink to 60 minutes (and even if it does it'll probably just start later) they're not looking in a great position. April 14th is probably their first opportunity to shift BGT but the PR damage may be done by then.

The upside for ITV is that BGT was very good last night and was much better than the last couple of launches, so they'll be hoping for a pretty small drop next week (a rise is probably out of the question with the shorter running time). The Voice meanwhile seems to have gone down very well on Twitter (but less well on here interestingly) so will probably rise next week to 9m or above, weather permitting, so ITV really need to be hot on the PR to avoid negative headlines (unlikely I know). It'll be interesting to see where The Voice ends up though. I can see it growing throughout the auditions to something in the high-9s by the end of the auditions, before a bit of a drop-off for the battle rounds and a slight rise again for the live shows. With BGT out of the way for the last few weeks some of those live shows could do really, really well. BBC1 have a big new hit on their hands.

Interesting stuff - though nothing we haven't been saying here for the last 18 months.


They've still got a series filmed in January 2011 they haven't aired - and are still appealing for contestants so more Total/Winter Wipeout must be in the pipeline.



Probably more to do with the Six Nations usually ending the week before than summer time itself.


The benefit of ITV1 HD - no announcers or promos over the credits.


So true.


Interesting. Just to confirm would that BGT figure be the people watching the last hour of the show (at anytime before 2am) rather than taking into account people watching the full show on a 20-minute delay after watching The Voice?

As I said earlier I wouldn't be surprised to see BGT move out of the way of clashing with The Voice once Take Me Out finishes. The big clash I suppose will be the live final of BGT (now said to be May 12th) which if it is all on one night will be unable to avoid a significant clash witih The Voice, which should be live by that stage.

Millions did tune in for bgt, yes, but because so few watched the first 20 minutes, it meant BGTs average was 9.4m which according to broadcast was the lowest for BGT since 2008. When the BGT final is at 7pm, its going to be up against The Voice for 80 minutes. Thats gonna do a lot of damage to it, if people still at that stage are liking The Voice.

Also if The Voice takes off, people might be bored by the X Factors older staler format. Theres only so much people can stomach singing shows in 6 months, just look at whats happened in America. As soon as XFUSA and The Voice have gone into America, the old stale American Idol's ratings have plumetted.


Okay, so each coach has 10 contestants during the battle round. Each coach gets 2 of their contestants to go in a boxing ring and sing off against each other. Each contestant might sing a few lines or verses at a time. The coach then decides to put through one of the two contestants, the person who sang better. So by the end of the battle rounds, each coach will have 5 contestants.

In terms of the actual shows, I Sky+'d 2 and a half hours of talent shows last night and didn't see one potential singing star - although I believe will.i.am lied to 3 of them about international careers! The highlights for me were a gay ballroom dancing act and a bad German singer with wings.

I think BGT got a nice refresh. The narration was so repetitive and doing away with it was a definite positive. Walliams in particular is a good addition. The panel would be far better with 3 judges, doing away with Amanda and keeping Alesha. Ant & Dec were good as usual. They struck the right note with the bad acts - it was always kept quite light and amusing. Bizzare, but amusing anyway. There were no misfires like Ceri on X Factor last year which was just a bit grim. They could however, have done with one extra really good act (a potential finalist) and I thought they tried too hard to set up the last act as another SuBo.

The Voice was everything it promised not to be. All about the judges. The talent rarely varied from "good, not great". The sob stories were reminiscent of X Factor 2004-2008 (I'm bald, I'm fat, my mum died). Promising people careers that they'd never have. Contrived (that guy from Five and the girlfriend were never, ever going to be allowed to get through).

But that's not to say that it's not a great format! I think it'll really benefit from us getting to know the judges and caring about who gets what act. The whole chair thing definitely works. I think the judges were a decent mix as well - grating at points but overall good. At 80 minutes and just constant "feature length" auditions, it was a bit of a slog towards the end especially when there was so little variation in the talent level and too many people went through. The pace sagged a bit, especially at the start. I've also never known a show to spend so much time telling us that it's so wonderful but I'd imagine we might see less of that as time goes by. There's definitely potential there. No doubt that the spinning chairs work. But the main reason it works is the main reason X Factor works - because they're rather like the Pop Idol auditions!


The show was set up from the word go as an anti-Cowell show (even though a significant number probably watched both!). Even when he wasn't saying anything, there was always someone from The Voice doing the talking anyway. By this week, when he did actually speak on the topic, it was long past the point of ignoring it. Whereas that Rage Against The Machine campaign suddenly became mainstream when he blethered on about it, The Voice wasn't exactly short on press anyway. It has been bound to play out as a "war" for weeks now, whether ITV wanted it that way or not.

I'm starting to wonder if ITV's treatment of The Voice isn't quite the own goal people seem to think it was. By hyping up The Voice the way they have they've done any number of things that help them:

Any year-on-year drops in Britain's Got Talent are now explained away by a clash with The Voice. This also helps to protect Cowell's reputation given that his return to the auditions was supposed to push the numbers back up. And by the same token had The Voice bombed out of the gate (or if it now goes onto fall off a cliff) no one is going to be sparing the time to write about drops in Talent's numbers. It also means that Cowell and the SyCo team have to pull their finger out with The X Factor or risk it being overshadowed by The Voice as it has been in the US.

Or maybe I'm giving them too much credit. In truth ITV (and Cowell) were probably betting on The Voice either bombing out of the gate or audiences disliking it and therefore building it up as legitimate competition only makes the fall harder. And scares the BBC off of trying anything like this for another decade.


If it sticks to what we've seen elsewhere 2-4 blind auditions shows. 2-4 battle rounds. 6-8 live shows. And a separate results show won't be introduced until the final few weeks of the live shows. Following that schedule it would be on course for early-mid June finale I think.

Bit in bold.

Well, indeed, and when the Beeb used to have the FA Cup as well, Q1 was full of live events for the Beeb, I remember in 2004 that there were only about three Saturdays from January to March which didn't have live sport at teatime, so they showed the likes of ET in the blank weeks rather than boot a new series around the schedule.

on the bbc website they only have it down running for 12 weeks as for now, I don't think that includes results shows however

Grauniad report of Voice v. BGT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...talent-ratings

Looking at the BBC's future schedule. In It to Win It have got nine shows to air but I suspect they'll take a week off for Eurovision (The Voice reverts to Friday night). Which would give an indication the series will wrap up on 2nd June. Pointless Celebrities have got six shows to air and suspect they will do so from 7th April to 12th May. According to SRO Audiences, the live shows for The Voice start on 28th April. So I suspect the schedule from now to 21st April will still be this.

6pm - Celebrity Winter Wipeout/Pointless Celebrities
7pm - The Voice UK
8.20pm - In It to Win It
9.10pm - Casualty

Question is when the live shows do commence, are they going to keep the 80 minute slot or split it and have a results show? At the moment, there is no room for an extra show. I know there will be room in the schedule from 5th May onwards as there will be no Match of the Day but surely they cannot push Casualty back further?

I think it will fall, The problem is the clocks have gone back and if the weather is good....


Yeah with strictly the results shows were never counted in the episode total either.

I think the first few weeks of live shows there wont be any results episodes. What the Beeb could do is have The Voice 7 to 8.30pm, including the results. Casualty then starts at 9.20pm, BBC News at 10.10pm.

They'll be pushing it at the start since there will be 20 singers remaining and even though they might have 10 for the first show, it's going to be a mad rush to get through 10 performances, leave the phone lines open for 15-20 mins after the performances then to announce who goes out.

Youre right, they might need more time. Cant they just drop In It To Win It for a few weeks and just show the Lottery draws? Then, The Voice live show could be between 7pm to 9pm. Id prefer it all in one cos if theres a separate results show, some people might forget to tune in for it. At least with 1 show, people will stick with it from start to finish, even if some of it is against BGT.

They pushed it to 9.40 last week and it did well. The current run of Casualty is 8/9 episodes shorter than recent years so it might just go for a break.

I will be surprised if they do drop In It to Win as it would cause a lotto scheduling pile up if they do. I know Nick Knowles is recording another series of Secret Fortune at the end of April and that will be for 12 shows. That won't be 12 consecutive weeks as they'll take some Saturdays off for Euro 2012 and the Olympics. My guess they'll drop A Question of Sport to give them some room and move everything back.

5.45pm - Pointless Celebrities
6.40pm - The Voice UK
8.20pm - In It to Win It
9.10pm - Casualty

They had no choice last week as it was the final of Let's Dance and it was also the final day of Six Nations rugby.