I think it's just the way things are going for reality tv. Look at America. They add hash tags through dramas (Fringe on Fox) etc. It wouldn't surprise me to see BB use it come summer, at least for evictions.

Yep, it's 100% down to Twitter's algorithm and nothing to do with there being more competition etc. #BGT is one of the most tweeted hashtags in the UK every week (as confirmed by trendistic and tellybug) and is easily the most tweeted hashtag in the UK whilst the show is on air - you just have to search #bgt during an episode and see how many tweets there are per second compared to some of the stuff which actually ends up in the 'top trending' list. But that particular #bgt hashtag has not trended since Twitter changed their algorithm in 2010. This is why you shouldn't put so much importance on Twitter trending topics for multiple reasons including the fact some terms aren't even given the chance to trend in the first place.

Does this mean #BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato) can't trend either?

Oh I don't, I've said myself before that they doesn't really mean anything (BB12 trended worldwide all the time). Would still be interesting though if they didn't mess with it and just went on what was most tweeted about at the moment. Either way though, even with the act and song hash tags BGT kept showing, there were far more trending topics worldwide for The Voice.

Time will indeed tell.

I believe everything surrounding The Voice has every chance of becoming as annoying to haters as The X Factor is, give it a few years.

Remember this is the first series,will the press do an X Factor and print stories surrounding the show for months on end, even when the show isn't airing. No doubt all 'coaches' will quit the show/rejoin the show/be offered more money/less money/defect to TXF/turn down Cowell's money/take part in irrelevant dodgy behaviour in their private lives etc etc ten times over before next year!

Hopefully not. BB did fine on the trending front without them having to do that, especially during evictions. Trying too hard to get attention is not an attractive quality.

It comes as sad news to me that networks are doing it with stuff like Fringe. I think it's good to be trending if it's a reality show, but far less so if it's a drama. The last thing I want to be doing during a drama I'm really enjoying is tweet about it, I prefer to give it my full attention.

Kind of surprising then that tonight for example #TheBridge managed to trend. A commercial free foreign import with non-English audio and subtitles throughout, you'd have thought precisely the kind of drama that requires 100% attention. So how did viewers find the time to tweet? Or were they simply jumping on #TheBandwagon?

Becoming? I think I'm already there.

All this Voice, BGT, X Factor talk is getting annoying. Before they started their was talk about the Voice killing BGT. Now that hasn't happened Some Posters think X Factor will be axed or not do as well this year.

Good point. That's why DS pages has no indication on ratings. Evictions in BB12 which averaged around 1.4m was getting around 50 pages on DS sometimes, and finales were getting over 70. DS has a massive BB following, more so than any other section.

I agree somewhat but coming from you, the person who asked for X Factor predictions several times a day, its quite the irony.

Can we ban talk of twitter and any relation to ratings. Or start a Twitter Ratings thread?

Most people didn't expect The Voice to perform as well as it has. Even media experts predicted it "would be a hit, gaining 6-8 million viewers, but BGT winning comfortably the ratings battle."

In honesty, most are clearly shocked at how quickly The Voice became a dangerous threat to one of Cowell's previously considered unbeatable formats.

The truth is, it isn't strangling BGT. But it has given it the bolt up the arse it needed. What it has done is take Cowell's complacency away, and that is unfamiliar territory for him. I didn't suggest The X-Factor would be readily axed. I merely asked whether people may end up questioning the relevancy of it longterm. But sure, TV hasn't beaten BGT this year. It may well do next year though.

Probably not too surprising when you consider the history of the website. Big Brother made Digital Spy what it is.

Sometimes I wonder if I'd even be a DS member right now had it not been for Big Brother. And what else I'd be spending mountains of my free time on instead.

ETA: DS is not totally useless in that regard though. You can, for example, compare thread views/replies for launches from one series to the next to give a rough idea. I will be doing this with BB13.

Having watched The Voice's Battle Rounds tonight I'm still amazed that people consider this the weakest part of the format. I think it works incredibly well and is infinitely better than the post-audition/pre-live stages that we see on other talent shows (and generally that point of the process is where these talent shows stumble).


I agree. As a format I think …Got Talent is by far the strongest talent show format anywhere in the world purely because it has such limitless possibilities on who and what it can feature. The problem is that invariably the producers tend to stick to a very limited range of performers and talents. Additionally most of the non-singing and non-dancing acts tend to be used as filler or comedy which doesn't help.

What I find particularly strange though is that SyCo (or ITV) have never really seemed all that bothered about finding a major talent outside of the singing and dancing genres. It seems to me that they're missing a major opportunity there. If they were able to find a brilliant mentalist or magician for example then you'd think SyCo would be able to develop a format or show of some kind for them that they could then sell to ITV. It just seems to me that Talent is the perfect place for them to find and develop a huge wealth of talent that they could then use to fill the ITV (and ITV2) schedule.


But would Talpa have wanted to sell to Channel 4 or 5? I'm not so sure they would have.


They didn't turn down ITV's offer because the BBC is 'bigger'. They turned down ITV for two key reasons

1 – They felt the BBC was a much better fit for The Voice brand than ITV (and I'd agree with them on that).
2 – They quite rightly identified that there was no natural home for The Voice on ITV's schedule.

The fact that Danny Cohen clearly wanted the show a lot and saw it as the centrepiece of the first half of the year for BBC1 probably didn't hurt either.



Stripped it across three weeks and then brought it back for a second (longer) series in a completely different slot (probably Friday night at 9PM running until 11PM) two months later.


You're making the dangerous assumption that people saying they're going to watch actually means they're going to watch. To take the opposite scenario how often do people on Twitter (and elsewhere) make the statement that they're never going to watch The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent again but then do the following week? Plus its worth remembering that the people tweeting this stuff is a relatively small number.

Can't remember the last time I watched a full episode of BGT. Still provides laughs but the talent has dried up; not that it's their fault. Ratings-wise, it's not that bad; just need a small swing in their favour.

The Voice is a huge hit. BGT is a huge hit. A few people seem to struggle to accept the fact that there can be two huge Saturday night shows and are determined to slag one off in favour of the other, and this whole 'Voice has x number of trending topics and BGT has hardly any' that seem to pop up every single week are particularly tiresome as ultimately it never seems to mean very much.

I thought both shows were great tonight. The battle rounds actually worked really well and I actually thought it were much better than the US shows, probably because it wasn't as dragged out. Putting them over one weekend was a very smart move. BGT meanwhile was great again. This year has probably been one of their best ever years in terms of pure entertainment, and it feels fresh again. No doubt the thought of competition from The Voice helped give it a kick up the arse and it's a better show for it.

On another note, why on earth did ITV repeat the Benidorm Christmas special tonight? Very odd choice of episode considering it's April!

Honestly at first I thought The Voice was... :/ ...I didn't think it worked for this tonight
But by the end! Omg I was completly involved, at first I hated presenters, by the end I loved em! (Holly just shouted too much at first) and the only thing I'd change is the lighting!

Overall a good night!

BGT? Liked the martial arts, but ****ing hell...the rest was cheap shite, the 'awkward' people were good, then they stuck on someone supposedly nervous who did some shit impressions (notice the judges had been told who they were of?) and shes the one that got through!?

So forced tonight, and omg the last act - ffs this is what people hate of the show!


After a shaky start, the battlerounds actually increased the contrast between The Voice and BGT, I did not enjoy BGT AT ALL!

PS: Since its DS I need to qualify this, I usually enjoy the BGT auditions but hate the live shows - but where **** is the variety? Where is the talent?

And STV is very canny for once!
A showing of Forgetting Sarah Marshall!

ITV should look at films following BGT. FFS there Potter films could do with a few million more atm!

At 9.45pm???

Though I agree, the scheduling of a Benidorm Christmas Special was stupid beyond belief.

Are you seriously suggesting that they stick Harry Potter on at half 9?

Having said that I don't disagree with the notion of films running out of Talent (or The X Factor) for that matter. Probably not Harry Potter but a decent premier running out of these shows could do very well. Although there's the issue of it potentially running very late...

I think they need to lay off Potter for a while (probably until Christmas) as I think they've under performed recently due to how overexposed they've been. As recently as last Summer screenings of the first 5 films (weekly) did very well so I don't think there's a problem with the films themselves, just with the scheduling and frequency of them (although in their defence they've never aired any of them on ITV2). 9:45pm would be far too late for them though.

I don't think films are the answer for the post-BGT slot (unless it's a big premiere). They've got Mad Mad World (a new comedy panel show recorded in February) waiting to air so I don't get why they aren't giving that the BGT-lead in. Surely it wouldn't do any worse than Benidorm repeats?

As Steve Williams will no doubt be happy to confirm, repeating Christmas specials in April or August is a long-standing TV tradition, which to be honest we haven't seen that much of in recent years.

But surely as filler on an off night rather than using the biggest lead in on commercial television of the week?

Maybe that they'd rather air a Benidorm Christmas repeat in April is just a sign of how bad Mad Mad World is?

Or I suppose they could be interested in how Benidorm will perform out of Britain's Got Talent and they're using a repeat screening or two as a guide? Perhaps a sign that they're considering pairing the two up next year. They've certainly had worse ideas over the years.

I don't think anyone said they did, it's just odd that this place was really critical of The Voice after the first episode but it's now getting three times more pages here than BGT.

Yeah. It's got more posts than General Discussion despite no one posting there when the show's not on.

GD = 9 million posts
BB = 12.6 million posts

And it crashes the site more than X Factor (the second largest reality forum here, which is itself has 9.6 million posts less than BB despite being active all year round).

Films is my main point.
In terms of Potter am thinking that theres likely an audience who haven't seen them, but maybe would if there sitting on their bums in front of the tele, and the pre-9:45 will have seen them already.

You are right about running late ofc, but then it boosts the later hours at least.

(I also nearly said Bond but realised they'd lost the rights, so maybe thought of the next brand they owned but shhhhhh! )