Of course it isn't on its last legs. Got a bit bored with certain posters on this thread announcing The Voice is a flop and it's certain to be axed. The BBC have far too few shows that can get nearly six million on a bad day to casually toss one away. Is it doing worse that Doctor Who did in this slot? Is it doing worse than the Lloyd-Webber shows did in this slot or So You Think You Can Dance? Is it doing worse than any of their other light entertainment shows? No, no and no. It is a hit.

There are obviously flaws with the execution but these can be ironed out and if next year it finds a Susan Boyle or something it has potential to do enormous ratings. If the BBC are willing to bring back Tonight's The Night and ITV are willing to bring back Popstar to Operstar, with way smaller audiences, then why the hell wouldn't they bring back The Voice? It's going to be around for a while.

Fox's new schedule exactly as rumoured yesterday.

Brief details on their shows for those that want them.

True, and I dont know what the BBC would do in place of the The Voice anyway. There is bound to be a series next year and surely they will pitch in with a further contract. They need to find hooks for the live shows, at the moment everything about the live process has driven people away.

Well according to the popular press, revolving chairs will feature more in the live shows. Perhaps the singers can be spun around during routines, or the dancers can sit in spinning chairs, or perhaps the viewers can be tempted to watch from swivel chairs (at least then they would have a reason for feeling queasy when watching) In short, most of the revamp ideas involving more swivelling.

I don't believe BBC spent £25m expecting The Voice to settle at 6 million. That might constitute a 'flop'.

The crucial thing is that Tonight's the Night and the Lloyd-Webber shows weren't nearly as expensive or hyped as The Voice (at least the Lloyd-Webber stuff felt like proper BBC shows that were distinctively different to Cowell fare).

The Voice is still a 'hit', but clearly not the hit it was a month ago. Now it's pulling in less than the seemingly declining Dancing on Ice. All the successful talent shows (TXF, SCD, DOI) built in their first series as well. Not halved their audience.

But it's not that it's actively driving people away, it's because people just aren't that bothered that much about it. There's always going to be a problem with the first series anyway because ideally you wouldn't be in the situation where you're having double eliminations and people getting to the final having sung only three times, which I think is probably stopping people really connecting with the contestants, but then you don't want to commit to a long series from day one. Presumably the next series will be longer so they won't have to dart through the live shows.

But it's not actively repelling viewers, it simply hasn't got that hook it needs - which would easily be solved if they got more interesting contestants next year. The Beeb aren't going to be blubbing over a non-descript mid-series episode getting six million an hour earlier than usual on BGT Final night. It's the best they've ever done there.

High praise indeed. Watch us tonight we are not actively repellant! Just passively boring as hell.

The show was getting 10 million a few weeks ago. That sort of decline is going to attract comment whether you like it or not.

They also didn't get anywhere near the column inches, and they didn't appeal to a young audience either. It's like when Chris Evans took over the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and he says the ratings went up from 7 million to 7.5 million, but he didn't just bring in 500,000 more listeners, he brought in several million new, younger listeners, completely changing the demographics of the station. You'd never get so many people tweeting and so many newspaper front pages about the Lloyd Webber shows and the Beeb can use it to illustrate that they're serious about serving all audiences.

Especially as we hear so much on this thread about BBC1 skewing too old.

Britain's Got Talent was getting 17 million a few years ago. Nobody's saying that's headed for the chop, is it? Apart from Glenn A.

Strictly does very well with a young audience (though not as well as TXF). History will probably see TVUK in the same vein as those other 'me too' BBC shows like Fame Academy, Upstairs Downstairs and Shane Richie's Caught in the Act (!!)

Slightly different. I'm not saying 6m is bad on any level, and I'm not saying The Voice will be axed, but for a show to go from 10m to 6m in the same series and in a matter of weeks is pretty startling.

data for w/e 6th May 2012 now live on BARB website

enjoy

What were the rating for that?

1.22m (5%); +1: 126k = 1.35m (source)

And looking at BARB, it crept back above 2 million in the officials for the episode awkwardly scheduled at 6pm on May 6th. (1.88m + 173k = 2.05m)

Not exactly a good comparison as BGT got 17m once. At its peak it was averaging around 12m and now averages around 10m, and that peak was several years ago. The Voice was getting 10m several weeks ago, and it didnt get it just once either, it was in that sort of vicinity for 5 consecutive episodes and has plummeted within a few weeks. A very different comparison.

The Voice isn't heading for the chop, but they do need to make changes to it next year. I'd hesitate before placing it with the 'big boys' in the talent show league. People were claiming DOI was heading for the chop a few months back when it was getting 7m against Call The Midwife. Again it obviously isn't but when one of these shows falls drastically (or even not that drastically) people comment on it, and occasionally get a bit over-excited.

The 5th May live show for The Voice was 1.63m ahead of the next day's results show.

The 12th May live show for The Voice was 0.56m behind the next day's results show.

I think that may just suggest that Saturday's figure was by hit the slot change and weather more than people giving up on the show.

I see it finally happened - a repeat of Law & Order SVU outrated the new episode on Channel 5. Scheduling fail right here:

10 LAW AND ORDER - SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT (WED 2200) 1.10m
12 LAW AND ORDER - SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT (SAT 2318) 1.07m

In order to get the new series finished before Big Brother starts they are now showing double bills on Saturday nights for the rest of the run, this weekend finishing as late as 12.35am. Why won't they simply run new episodes on Wednesdays and Saturdays?

Most Watched Shows of 2012 [Top 20 - Officials]
01 - 12.20m - CORONATION STREET (23/01/12) - ITV1/HD
02 - 11.99m - THE VOICE UK (14/04/12) - BBC1/HD
03 - 11.59m - BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT (14/04/12) - ITV1/HD
04 - 11.41m - CALL THE MIDWIFE (19/02/12) - BBC1/HD
05 - 10.98m - EASTENDERS (02/01/12) - BBC1/HD

06 - 10.66m - SHERLOCK (01/01/12) - BBC1/HD
07 - 9.29m - DANCING ON ICE (08/01/12) - ITV1/HD
08 - 9.11m - EMMERDALE (05/01/12) - ITV1/HD
09 - 8.41m - TITANIC (25/03/12) - ITV1/HD
10 - 8.31m - MRS BROWN'S BOYS (04/02/12) - BBC1/HD

11 - 8.05m - THE APPRENTICE (11/04/12) - BBC1/HD
12 - 8.00m - WILD AT HEART (08/01/12) - ITV1/HD
13 - 7.97m - ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS (01/01/12) - BBC1/HD
14 - 7.93m - SILENT WITNESS (01/04/12) - BBC1/HD
15 - 7.87m - UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS (19/02/12) - BBC1/HD

16 - 7.86m - ENDEAVOUR (02/01/12) - ITV1/HD
17 - 7.61m - SCOTT & BAILEY (12/03/12) - ITV1/HD
18 - 7.59m - COUNTRYFILE (05/02/12) - BBC1/HD
19 - 7.41m - ANTIQUES ROADSHOW (15/04/12) - BBC1/HD
20 - 7.32m - ABOVE SUSPICION (09/01/12) - ITV1/HD

Most Watched Multichannel Shows of 2011 [Top 20 - Officials]
01 - 2.85m - LIVE FORD SUPER SUNDAY (05/02/12) - Sky Sports 1
02 - 2.74m - CELEBRITY JUICE (09/02/12) - ITV2
03 - 2.66m - LIVE FORD MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (30/04/12) - Sky Sports 1
04 - 2.30m - UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE LIVE (24/04/12) - Sky Sports 2
05 - 2.16m - TREASURE ISLAND (01/01/12) - Sky1

06 - 1.96m - LIVE FORD FOOTBALL SPECIAL (11/02/12) - Sky Sports 1
07 - 1.94m - THE BIG BANG THEORY (19/04/12) - E4
08 - 1.68m - LIVE CARLING CUP FOOTBALL (25/01/12) - Sky Sports 1
09 - 1.68m - MAD DOGS (19/01/12) - Sky1
10 - 1.53m - TOUCH (20/03/12) - Sky1

11 - 1.53m - THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX (29/02/12) - ITV2
12 - 1.47m - FOYLE'S WAR (21/01/12) - ITV3
13 - 1.42m - STELLA (06/01/12) - Sky1
14 - 1.42m - SUN, SEX AND SUSPICIOUS PARENTS (22/02/12) - BBC3
15 - 1.42m - EASTENDERS (16/02/12) - BBC3

16 - 1.35m - THE BIG BANG THEORY: ACCESS ALL AREAS (05/04/12) - E4
17 - 1.35m - FILM: SHREK THE THIRD (08/04/12) - BBC3
18 - 1.34m - DOC MARTIN (21/01/12) - ITV3
19 - 1.30m - ALCATRAZ (13/03/12) - Watch
20 - 1.30m - HAWAII FIVE-0 (22/01/12) - Sky1

Source: BARB. Excludes +1, Includes HD for Terrestrial Chart. Only 1 programme per 'show', i.e. only one Ford Super Sunday game.

334k for Awake on Atlantic is pretty solid considering they did a relatively small campaign for it in comparison to Smash, which has 289k in the officials. Obviously cancelled this week which is a shame, Awake seems like the kind of show that would be getting c1m on Sky 1 (admittedly available in more homes than Atlantic via its carriage on Virgin Media).

The main repeats for Smash and Awake were also both over 100k.

Er - surely it's Downton Abbey that is the 'me too' show to the original LWT Upstairs Downstairs ...?

That's £20+ million for two series of the show though. And by my working the BBC is going to come out of series 1 of The Voice having aired about 20 hours of content on BBC1. Assuming they stick to a similar set up for series two you're looking at 40+ hours over two years. That's not terrible for a £20-something million price tag especially when you consider that with timeshift and iPlayer added in The Voice is probably more likely to settle at 7+ million than 6 million. I'm not sure where else the BBC get 40+ hours of 7 million rated content (particularly not with the demos The Voice has had so far).

Although obviously you need to add various production costs to the price tag which pushes that up a little.

'The Voice' was a strange choice for the BBC, singing competitions generally don't appeal to men as much as women.

A variety show would have made more sense, that would be right up the BBCs alley.

I think the fear of failure thing got to the new executive, they wanted a sure-fire winner...

A little? It will be 10m per series at least.

Lets says that The Voice UK has production costs of £15 million for each of its two series. Add that to £25 million license fee (although wasn't it £22 million not 25?) and you get a price tag of £55 (or 52) million. That sounds like a lot (and in fairness it is) but over two years the BBC are getting at least 40 hours of content which would give The Voice a per hour average of £1.3 – 1.4 million. That's high but its not as absurdly big as people want to suggest.