The X Factor USA judging panel confirmed as Simon Cowell, LA Rulz, Britney Spears and Demi Lovato.

It sounds as though Raven Symone is going to be co-host. It's rumoured that the male co-host will be Chad Michael Murray.

the issue is how the BBC has spent millions of pounds of licence-payers' cash buying-in an international format. Their unique funding is there for them to innovate and create (and yes, come up with their own formats).

Something seems to have perked you up a bit lately, George. You were miserable and grumpy all winter - apart from when the official Christmas ratings came out - but now you seem to be full of the joys of spring all of a sudden.

Are you in love?


I wondered if someone was going to say something about Emmerdale's solid beating at the hands of The Voice. Looks like not everyone on here is as eagle-eyed as you and me when scanning the day's ratings - glad someone else spotted it.


Although we were always going to get someone having a go at posting excuses...


Hm. Nothing to do with being forced into ever-earlier slots on ever-lightening/warming evenings, by any chance? And some unfortunate (but entirely foreseeable) scheduling clashes?

Emmerdale isn't strong enough to be placed in a random spot in the schedule. Coronation Street tends to struggle there as well.


They wanted to air it the same time as Britain's Got Talent so they have had to accept that they would have competition. But the shares could've been stronger than they were/are.
Last edited by Fudd : 14-05-2012 at 22:21

Like I said, it was entirely "foreseeable". But whilst ITV did bring BGT forward deliberately as a blatant spoiler, which the Beeb may not have expected, I do think the BSI forgot all about the FA Cup being pushed back into the evening schedule and the Champions League Final now being on Saturday evenings; and did they forgot all about Eurovision, despite it being on the same channel?

In fact, one wonders if they even checked there was nothing else of major national significance happening on the weekend they pencilled in for the Final....

BGT was brought forward because of the Champions League, the England international and Soccer Aid taking up the weekends. Stephen Mulhern said as early as January that the show would return in March so it wasn't a massive surprise.

I think the BBC are actually hoping the Jubilee will boost The Voice for it's final. They obviously didn't think it through in regards to Eurovision and the football, though - but maybe they couldn't get it on air any sooner?

Some have suggested starting TVUK much earlier next year. If it's 11 weeks again like this series, how about starting on Saturday 12 January and finishing on Saturday 23 March, the weekend before Easter? It would avoid BGT (hopefully ) and those big late-season football matches, but would there be any googlies ITV1 could throw in during that period?

Splitting Dancing On Ice over the two nights and Saturday Night Takeaway. Plus Take Me Out could take a few younger viewers away, but it doesn't rate brilliantly. But none of those are at Britain's Got Talent level; especially with Dancing On Ice taking a hit this year.

They have been all season and for most of last year as well. At this point I think Fox are just churning out the Animation Domination block as syndication goldmine more than anything else.


Lowest Survivor finale ever.


Yes because there's absolutely no precedent for the BBC to buy in successful international formats at all. And obviously the BBC have put absolutely no effort into trying to find their own home grown format for Saturday nights before finally throwing in the towel and trying to buy in successful formats from elsewhere.

This (http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/fox-...g/#more-272104) has proven what I've always assumed, Fox are the American ITV. Instead off focusing on their new shows and successes they bring up other networks failures, it's just pathetic and exactly the kind of behaviour we see from ITV. The only difference is that Fox sometimes airs good shows.

Huh? How often do ITV do that?

You have to remember that this is a presentation primarily to advertisers. And a lot of advertisers are, right now, going to be weighing up whether to throw their dollars behind The Voice or The X Factor. Also Fox (and Simon Cowell) felt particularly stung by The Voice's launch in the US.

When did ITV last bring up other show failures? Or, at least, to any more extent than the BBC do, or Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky...

I think it's unfair to say ITV don't make good programming but each to their own.

On a lighter note, of course The Voice has placed itself against a Syco show again. I wonder if both shows will benefit from the hype like they did here?

Wow. Britney. Didn't expect that to be honest.

Here is the X Factor section of the upfront presentation for anyone interested,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hs_e...ature=youtu.be

It sounds as though the presentation has finished without the hosts being announced. They're probably studying how much of their budget they have left afer splashing out on the panel!

I've been dismissive of the UK panel v US panel argument before but could this possibly hurt the UK show? The US have Britney and Demi (who is reasonably well known over here) plus L.A. Reid who is a hit maker. In comparison we have an unpopular - in terms of The X Factor - Gary plus Tulisa and Louis and one other; probably either Dannii or Alesha Dixon.

Last year the UK panel looked weak beacuse the US stole half the panel (but the US panel didn't look overly bigger name-wise compared to the UK version). Now the US panel have big names and the UK have... The question is whether the UK show needs big names or will it hold it's own without them?

Apart from The Biggest Loser, I can't really think of ITV buying in failed formats from other networks. If they have flops, they are usually their own material.

I believe now that the BBC feigned indignity at BGT's earlier start and they knew damn well where BGT was going to begin when they scheduled The Voice to start that particular weekend.

BGT obviously has to plan its live week well in advance to book studios and technicians and make sure the judges have their diaries free.

Trailers up on Fox's YouTube account for their new shows. They look pretty good.

It didn't seem overly hilarious but Ben and Kate looks like a good fit for New Girl.

Quite intrigued by The Mob Doctor, less sure on The Following but it does seem to have a stellar cast.

Exactly. The fact that Cowell will be in the middle of filming auditions for X Factor USA when the live week normally is should have been a giveaway. That and, like Fudd said, Stephen Mulhern saying back in January that BGT would be on in March.

Great panel on paper for XFUSA and it should certainly launch well, although as always, where it ends up will depend on how it plays out on screen.

Auditions for the UK show with the judges begin next week so they'll be making an announcement soon. They really need to get it right this time (I really liked Alesha on BGT but she should stay there, so if doing XF would mean that she'd leave BGT then they should get someone else). They need to make more on-screen changes too as the revamped BGT will completely show them up if they don't. Everything they did with BGT this year was great, so they've shown that they are perfectly capable of getting it right. What I did notice about BGT this year was that Cowell was very hands-on with the whole production (more so than before I think), and he won't be able to be like that with XFUK, so they need to get the right people involved backstage, as they can't afford to mess it up again.

All credit to Fox on their comedy pick-ups. They've seen that New Girl works well with their audience and I think they've picked up three new comedies that all work on similar lines with similar characters and sensibilities. It looks like a block that can work really well together. Whether that translates to an audience is another question entirely.

Mob Doctor looks much better than I expected. My problem with both Fox dramas though is that I have no idea how either one sustains itself for multiple seasons. The Following (urgh, please change that name Fox) in particular.

There is the 6 Nations, but no reason why The Voice couldn't air after a tea time match; dunno if any primetime Saturday night fixtures are planned for 2013, but unless they feature England I guess that won't be an issue as they would air on BBC2. Let's Dance for Comic Relief, assuming it returns, will need to air in the weeks running up to Comic Relief Night though of course, and that will presumably be the Friday before Easter (15th March?)

It was similar to Idol and a lot older than The Voice (season 1). But then again, there was no recogniseable face on the panel under 45(?).

It's a total 180 in terms of the panel. Where last year was safe and low profile this year both of them are tabloid fixtures and incredibly risky. In Britney they've gone just about as high profile as you can possibly get. Demi's not an A Lister by any stretch but she's kind of like Cheryl was in 2008 - high profile at the time and garnering a lot of sympathy.

Britney could be a total car crash. But she was once very "All American" and she may still pull it off. Pretty Southern blonde, young mother, come through hard times etc... She'll have some support as her fiance/agent is rumoured to be an Exec Producer as part of the deal (Cowell's alleged involvement in his appointment as co-conservator has got him some stick from Britney fans!). Perhaps also some demographic engineering here - obviously both appeal to a younger audience but also Britney being from the South where these shows tend to do so well and Lovato's hispanic appeal (they hope!).

As is always the case with these shows, it has been a badly kept secret. The big difference is that this year, the announcement includes the biggest name that was rumoured and both names capable of generating some buzz. Whereas last year a procession of A Listers were linked then it was a bit flat (FOX/Cowell perhaps thinking they could afford to play safe).


Firstly, I'll add myself to the list of people not quite getting the ITV dig.

But anyway, they're not the worlds toughest jabs. Advertisers show up to these things with a limited budget and money that goes to NBC won't go to FOX.

Additionally, Kevin Reilly was once fired in controversial circumstances by NBC. Everyone takes shots at NBC because it's so damn easy to do. And The Voice was a pretty direct attack on Idol/X Factor, especially with the move to fall. So a bit of rivalry isn't surprising.

No date set yet for Comic Relief, but Easter Day falls on 31 March, so a week before Good Friday would be 22 March.

Perhaps we should wait and see, we haven't even devised our Xmas schedules yet!