The problem with this plan of action is that after the audition stages The Voice essentially becomes a blood bath. For the Battle Rounds over the course of one weekend they're going to lose half of their contestants and then each of the results shows is likely to feature the eliminations of at least 4 acts (2 acts from each of the teams that has performed that week). That set up means that they can spread the eliminations out over the entire run time and keep viewers locked in from start to finish.


I imagine it depends on the time of year and what's on.

I'd agree that going beyond imports, family films and the occasional sporting event in the afternoon probably isn't worth it but it does feel like they could do so much more with Saturday mornings. Get the right kids show in that slot and there's potential to make some decent money. Of course that means finding the right show which is obviously easier said than done.

Might be worth mentioning at this point that I think next year is the 15th anniversary of the launch of SMTV. I wonder if ITV might be able to convince Ant & Dec (and Cat Deeley) to do a one-off special next year to mark it? That might give them some kind of idea of what kind of market remains for a show like that. Although probably not given how nostalgia driven the audience would likely be. It would at least give them something special for one Saturday morning of the year though.

Seth MacFarlane has so many shows and projects that it probably unsurprising Flintstones got delayed although TBH I'm unsure whether his brand of humour would work on the show but I believe they're going to make it more like the orginal series which aired in primetime back in the 60s which were similar to the sitcoms at the time than normal cartoons.

I think they'll get The Cleveland to 88-110 episodes before they cancel it, the news will mean that Bob's Burgers may get another season.

As for Peter Kay, think he's turned down a lot of projects, he was originally going to do a sitcom with Craig Cash and also Security Men.

Sounds like to me there'll be six semi-finals, meaning possibly 12 contestants in the final if 2 contestants from each semi go through. Not sure how they'll schedule the final, what with The Voice being around now. With 10-contestants in the final in previous years, they've normally had 2 hours for performances and 30 mins for the results. They'd probably require 2 hours and 15 minutes for the final performance show this time, as well as the results, if they drag it out a similar duration proportionally.

In previous years with no TVUK arouind, ITV would have probably scheduled a 12-contestant BGT final on the Saturday as 6.45-9pm and 9.30-10pm (with filler 9-9.30pm). I don't think they should do that this time, it would mean BGT clashing against TVUK for a substantial period of time which would knock off quite a bit off its potential rating. They ought to have the final results in some form, at the very least, on the Sunday (maybe 1 hour between 8-9pm), but even with that there'd probably be some kind of 30-60 minute overlap with TVUK on the Saturday.

Difficult to see what they could do, but I would suggest actually starting the semis from Monday 7th May to Saturday 12th May and then having all of the finale on Sunday 13th May. Something like:

Mon 7th: 21.00-22.30: Semi 1
Tue 8th: 20.30-22.00: Semi 2
Wed 9th: 20.30-22.00: Semi 3
Thu 10th: 20.30-22.00: Semi 4
Fri 11th: 21.00-22.30: Semi 5
Sat 12th: 20.30-22.00: Semi 6
Sun 13th: 19.30-22.00: Final inc. results

At least that way they would get a better rating for the final than the scenario of having it on the Saturday clashing quite a long period of time against TVUK.

Tweet from Jack Searle of Radio Times, who has been very critical of The Voice:

https://twitter.com/#!/jackseale

All the critics are raving about tomorrows episode:

Alex Fletcher from Digital Spy

Dean Piper from Sunday Mirror:

It is set to be a sensational piece of Saturday night television according to everyone whose seen it. Can it get 10million tomorrow?

I'm pretty sure it's going to be 5 semis with 9 acts in each, as that is what it says in the rules section of the press pack:


Source: BGT Press Pack

I think they'll do this:

Sun 6th: 20:00-22:00: Semi 1
Mon 7th: 20:30-22:30: Semi 2
Tue 8th: 20:00-22:00: Semi 3
Wed 9th: 20:00-22:00: Semi 4
Thu 10th: 20:00-22:00: Semi 5
Fri 11th: 20:00-22:00: Final Performances
Sat 12th: 20:30-22:00: Final Results

With it definitely starting on the Sunday and ending the following Saturday that seems like the way they'll do it. The only issue there is that due to the laws about child performers unless the Friday sho is shaorter it'll have to clash with EE for half an hour which will dent it. Although as it would just be a performances show with no voting results I suppose they could run it on a delay and start it at 20:30 but I can't see them doing that tbh. Pity that there doesn't seem to be a way of them getting around that for the night. Also as The Voice will only have 8 contestants that week it'll probably end at 8:15/8:20pm rather than 8:30pm so the Saturday show could start a bit earlier than 8:30pm. They'd be fools to go for an overlap with an 8pm start though if they want a 2 hour show (although there's the off chance that with it being the BGT Final that BBC1 might end The Voice at 8pm like when they moved Strictly out of the way of The X Factor Final last year, but the likelihood of that seems limited).

Sounds good, although in fairness it's at a point now where having great talent or not this week probably doesn't really matter as they've got the audience hooked in anyway. Although I guess it'll give the battle rounds an extra bit of momentum. At least they seem to have learnt from The X Factor's mistake of ending the auditions with the worst episode of the series and losing momentum because of it.

That crying trailer they've been running looks even more ridiculous than something from one of Cowell's shows though!

I swear that ITV1 have ran the Friday show until 10.30pm before so I wouldn't be surprised if they did that again. IF they don't schedule the same as they have before with Coronation Street but the silence from the cobbles suggests they haven't got anything big lined up this year.

Thanks a lot - so just the usual 5 semis and 10 contestants in the final, then. Will be interesting to see how that finale is scheduled. Could a Friday 2-hr performance show occur between 8.30-10.30pm as long as the child contestants perform before 10pm? A Friday final performance show would be a bit odd though because it's normally the lowest rated night of the week - plus as you say, if they go with 8-10pm, the first half an hour would be dented by EE, alternatively 8.30-10.30pm is arguably a bit on the late side. Also, how would a 90-minute final results show work? If they deem Friday not to be a good day for the finale, maybe they could take a day off on the Friday and have the finale split Sat/Sun (Sat 8.15-10.15pm with child contestants performing before 10pm, Sun 8-9.30pm).

Yeah they have and they will be able to on the Monday this year as they normally just don't have any under-16s in those semi finals (they put them on the other nights instead), but ith the Friday likely to be the final performances there is a fairly high chance of under-16s being involved meaning that they wouldn't be able to let it run past 10pm.

But why would they hold the final on a Friday night? It's the lowest rating night of the week. I think I agree with rzt - they may drop the Friday episode and have it over Saturday and Sunday. That'll give the Thursday semi finalists time to draw up a new act as well; the lack of time to create something new has been one of the main criticisms of previous series.

Talking about The Voice - how do the live shows actually work? I'm not entirely sure how this version is doing it.

IIRC, 2 teams of 5 contestants [10 altogether] compete in the first live show and 2 teams compete in the second live show. Has it been confirmed that 3 contestants from each team will be eliminated in those weeks?

I hadn't thought about just having the child perfomers on before 10pm but actually that seems like the best thing to do (particularly as so far at least there doesn't seem to be that many of them this year) and there'd be no reason why they couldn't do that. Agree about Friday being a weird day for the final although if you look at 2008 and 2009 when the semis all aired in decent slots the Friday shows rated very well in comparison to the others so it isn't too bad.

Taking a night off between the semis and the final would be great for practical purposes as the acts that perform later in the week are normally at a disadvantage to those that perform at the beginning of the week and taking a night off would limit that, but I can't see ITV agreeing to it as it'd mean a night of filler in their big week, so unless they had a big event lined up for that night (shame they didn't put Soccer Aid for that night) then I don't think they'd allow it. Plus there are 4 episodes of Vera and only 5 weeks before Soccer Aid so it could only miss one week and it will already be doing that for the first semi final so I can't see BGT airing on Sunday 13th. I don't think a Friday/Saturday split is too bad though in fairness.

At a guess a 90 minute (or 2 hour) results show would involve the initial 10th-4th place results being announced over the first 45 mins or so mixed with a guest performance or two. Then once the top 3 were announced they could perform again (with the lines re-opened), there could be a bit of a look back at the series (a comical one though using Walliams/Cowell and Ant and Dec) and another guest performance before the final results are announced. If they did it well and didn't make it too serious it could actually be quite good (last year's final results show felt a bit rushed if anything).

Looking at the US version, you're right about the first 2 weeks, but I think they'll only ditch one act per team, with weeks 3 and 4 doing the same as weeks 1 and 2 but with 8 contestants (2 teams of 4) instead of 10 per week, and 2 acts per team being voted off. Then in week 5 all 8 contestants (2 per team) performing with one from each team being eliminated, leaving the final 4 (1 per team) to compete in the final the following week.

If they air BGT from 8.30-10.30 Monday then 8-10 Tuesday to Thursday they're going to have two Coronation Street's and an Emmerdale to reschedule...one Coronation Street would presumably take the Wednesday 7.30pm slot which'd leave an Emmerdale and a Coronation Street left, plus the usual Friday night episodes. They could always clog the night up with them.

I really don't get why Dinner Date is going out at 8.25am on Sunday. Saturday Cookbook sort of makes sense at that time due to avoiding Saturday Kitchen, but Dinner Date could air at 9.30am, and still get a head start on Sunday Brunch/Saturday Kitchen Highlights

Decent night for Channel 4 although I'm not quite as positive about Derek's ratings as some people when you look at that lead-in. Definitely agree that someone needs to try and get Kay to do something new but it might be difficult getting him on board. He doesn't actually seem to do much these days but still seems hugely popular judging by that number. Long Lost Family back doing good business for ITV. They do need these kind of returnable factual series for 9pm weeknights.

Good for E4 and ITV2 among the digital channels - both with shows which repeat really well. I wonder if you add up all the airings of CJ does it come close to Lemonaid?!

As for The Voice, I suspect the BBC will become far less keen on overlaps and switch it with BBC News. Although even when it's BGT that starts first, ITV still get left with a headache in terms of ad placement.

I am not sure of the crossover between PK & RG fans, I can see a good percentage watching PK for 'classic laughs' and then seeing a comedy drama set in an old folks home and switching off as its not their thing. I would like to see Derek time shift to over 2m.

It got 2.1m in the overnights with +1. Once the 11 minutes of unused slot is removed, it should consolidate very well.

4.4m for Piers Morgan's Life Stories.

Could be close with BBC One then? Not a bad rating at all though.

Ken

5.7m for Have I Got News For You and 4.4m for Not Going Out.

Just read that from Sam Hodges.

There are alot of experts on the Voice digital spy forum who should know. They seem to have the most up to date info

That's a very strong rating from Have I Got News For You. It had been stuck below 5m in the last series that ran. Could bode well for the Would I Lie To You rating at 8:30pm.

Battle rounds next where the coaches pitch two of their own contestants against each other and eliminate one from each pair.This leads to the coaches having their final 5.

In the weeks that follow one contestant from each coach is eliminated (so 4 eliminations a week) until it gets down to the final 4 (each coach has one finalist).

In the USA the contestant eliminated was calculated by a combination of judges score, viewers vote and itune downloads. Probably wont be able to do the itune downloads in the UK, maybe they will do videos on bbciplayer or something? More likely be just a viewers vote and judges score?