I will hold you to that! I wouldn't be so sure.

Ken

Audition 1: 8.43m
Peak: 9.6m
Audition 2: 9m
Peak: 10.2m
Audition 3: 9.54m
Peak: 10.6m
Audition 4: 10.68m
Peak: 12m

Battle 1: 9.89m
Peak: 11.6m
Battle 2: 10.09m
Peak: 11.3m

Live Show 1: 9.33m
Peak: 10.3m
Results: 8.62m

Live 2: 8.16m
Peak: 9.1m
Results: 6.53m

Live 3: 5.64m
Peak: 6.4m
Results: 6.2m

Live 4: 5.68m
Peak: 6.5m
Results: 5.8m

Semi-Final: 4.49m
Results: 4.68m

Final: 7.14m
Peak: 8.7m

Overnight average for Series 1: 7.64m

I agree, I think The Voice will seriously underperform this year (potentially between 5m-7m overnight for audition shows). The live shows were a disaster last year. I can't see the show recovering from that or having the ability to generate the same buzz as last year even for the audition rounds.

I don't think keeping the same judges as last year will help- Tom Jones and Danny were terrible, goodness knows why the BBC saw fit to bring them back.

As you say as well the general growing apathy for talent shows won't help either and the format changes certainly aren't going to energise the public.

I wouldn't be surprised to see SNT beating The Voice next week or at the very least coming close!

Having said all that- I'll be tuning in next week

Thanks alot for those! I think it will be fine this year.

I will be tuning in!

Ken

Saturday night takeaway isnt just any old show Itv has "dragged off the scrapheap", it is their most popular entertainment show outside of the talent shows. It's a ratings hit. Last years Voice launch was against family fortunes and TV Burp, weak competition and the latter of which wasnt even getting 5million for its normal editions. Even last year if Voice had launched against Snt instead of tv burp, it wouldnt have got 8.4million, it wouldve got about 7.4million because Snt is about 2million more popular than ff/Tv burp. So expecting Voice this year to launch to 8.4million is out of question, it's not going to happen and the bbc know this. Even 7.4million is a push because thats what it wouldve got against Snt last year, this year with less hype than last year's series launch and lack of novelty value, it will probably start lower than that. That's why I predict 6-6.5million average [7.5-8million peak] would be a good base to launch for Voice series 2, with it consolidating to 9million in BBC Live+7 ratings.

TV Burp was one of the biggest most talked about shows of the last decade, also hardly some old rubbish.

I didnt say it was old rubbish. But in its last series, it was gettign relatively weak ratings of about 4.5million which is about 2million worse than what Ant and Dec has been getting [and 2million down from its glory days].

Great set of ratings really only falling down from live 3 onwards. There are three less live shows this year I think but ultimately The Voice needs some luck in finding something newsworthy from its contestants to create a few hooks and a few to stand out as real talent. Too much bland will be the end for it.

Thanks for this. So, as I thought, next week's episode will come in cheaper than the 45 minute Doctor Who episode on before it and probably not a lot more than SNT opposite it.

The BBC really don't help themselves sometimes. The way they let the PR flaming war blow up last year helped the show to initial highs, but also left it with a giant target on its back when things went downhill. And stuff like the £22m figure just exacerbates that - its almost like they were happy for people to quote it as if to prove how huge the show was, when they ought to have been pointing out that it really wasn't all that extraordinary.

It all made what ought to have been thought of as a decent new hit look like an epic failure.

From a ratings point of view it's obvious why they've cut in half the number of live shows, but from a critics point of view it's baffling as one of the major complaints was with acts only getting to perform 4 times individually over the series people have time to invest in the contestants, and the mass eliminations were a bit of a mess too.


I do think too they'll struggle to keep an audience for 90 minutes of non-stop auditions, especially if they're edited the same way as last year with most being shown in full (well, as full as auditions get on such shows) rather than packaged into VTs.

"was one of the biggest most talked about shows of the last decade"

It was a great show, yes. But that quote. Really? Alongside:

- Corrie
- EastEnders
- X Factor
- Strictly
- Big Brother
- I'm a Celebrity
- Britain's Got Talent

Really? I don't think so...

Takeaway is a very old show that perhaps has one or two series in it. Its been left unchallenged by bbc one so far and is likely to take a heavy dip because of the voice heavy promotion and fanfare on bbc one. Had ant and dec had success with red and black itv is unlikely to have revived takeaway for a last gasp of the ratings but its certainly not a shiw in its prime. The voice has the fact its a relative newcomer in the entertainment slot on its side at the moment whether it builds on a second chance remains to be seen. Viewers will have to be kept entertained if they expect them to sit through 90mins of auditions. The voice uk first outing will certainly beat ant and dec next week. Itv need to find their talent a new show.

Saturday Night Takeaway WAS a very old show when it was quite rightly dropped in 2009, but even though it's still pretty much the same show it's revival it very new and performing much better than it was 4-5 years ago. It's also kind of claimed it's place back on Saturday nights - the first week people were happy to see it back, the second week people remembered the problems of old but a few weeks in now and it's hit the ground running and people are willing to accept the shows flaws because they are fairly minimal and the show otherwise is entertaining with nothing else like it on TV.


The Voice features similar challenges - as I said before the BBC are hoping everyone will still love the spinning chairs and tune in forgetting about the things that made them tune out last year.

The episode that The Voice against was hyped up as it was the last ever, so it wasn't any old episode. I agree Saturday Night Takeaway should provide tougher opposition, but I'll be surprised if it beats it.


They've been trying but Takeaway is the most reliable show they have at the moment.

You are right about the budget not actually being that massive. Budgets for TV in general tend to be overhyped.

Chances are that the £11m covers everything except the on-screen talent (judges and hosts), as is pretty standard with these deals. Bearing in mind the coaches combined were apparently on £1.1m, Holly got £400k and I'm guessing Reggie got around £200k, that gives a total of £1.7m on top of the £11m. Across the 20 hours 50 minutes the show ran for last year that gives a total of approximately £610,000 per hour.

In comparison, ITV reportedly paid £120m for 3 years of The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. Across 63 hours per year (the combined running time of the two shows) you get an average of £635,000 per year. On top of that there's the on screen talent. For last year's X Factor that was £2m for Barlow, £750k for Nicole, £500k for Tulisa, £750k for Louis and (apparently) £1m for Dermot, giving a total of £5m, which means that last year's X Factor will have cost ITV approximately £750,000 per hour, which is probably lower than it was in the Cowell/Cole years.

BGT meanwhile has higher on-screen talent costs. Ant & Dec will cost them around £3.5m based on their overall deal. Cowell will be around £3m based on what he was getting on his last deal. Walliams got £400k, Dixon got £350k and Holden probably got something similar, meaning BGT probably costs ITV around £1m per hour, making it the most expensive of these shows.

Not sure, but I think it might work for the format. Rather than doing a shortened version of the X Factor's weekly elimination soap opera, they're going for a BGT-style quarter final, semi final and final. If they play it right, that means with each show the focus is on the "winner(s)" who go through, not the "loser(s)" who get knocked out. It's quick and positive, and cuts the series off before they need the XF style story lines (which often turn nasty) to keep the momentum going.

And remember, of course, that BGT acts only perform three times. Susan Boyle probably had 25 minutes of screen time, tops. I don't think thats a huge issue, so long as people accept the format's style for what it is.

Doctor who is an expensive show but will recover it costs in repeats and dvd sales worldwide which unfortunately the voice cannot. So despite it being 22 million it can never be repeated again unlike merlin or antlantis or muskateers. Perhaps bbc one should give the entertainment show to itv if it cannot come up with its own ideas and continue to invest in drama for saturday. Strictly has paid for itself in selling worldwide. If there is no entertainment formulas working at the moment the bbc need to run three hours of drama that's not casualty.

If it's a failure I doubt ITV will want it unless The X Factor crumbles this year (which is, admittedly, possible). The less singing shows the better as far as they're concerned, as it just splits The X Factor's audience. I'm sure Idol's fall in the US is at least partly down to so many options being available now in terms of singing programmes.

So I presume if The Voice's ratings are more than 60% of BGT then you will be calling it a success?

You're welcome

I'll be watching DW, TVUK, SNT and BGT, when it returns

What happened to Sing If You Can, I thought it was coming back?

So their most popular entertainment show... apart from the most popular ones!


While we're using ridiculous "targets", I'm going to use other successful TV talent shows for forecasting purposes. So lets start with X Factor... that grew 35% from its series one premiere to the series two premiere.

So my target for The Voice is 11.3m. And just be thankful I used X Factor and not Britain's Got Talent as the guide!

Out of interest Samuel, if 6m is a "happy" target rating. What exactly would be a really bad rating? Does it need to be beaten by Food Glorious Food before it's "bad news for the BBC...".


Maybe Brucie doesn't like The Voice either? He and Simon have finally found some common ground, perhaps?

I think there's a bit of leeway vs last years figures. The soaps are meant to last forever and if they're down ~5% nobody blinks and as we know, terrestrial TV viewing is in decline.

But The Voice is a bit unusual because of all the hype that certain people *cough cough* and the BBC attached to it before and after it launched last year (although there followed the hilariously sheepish retreats later on).

What I would say is that the US show has demonstrated that even when viewers are lost in the live shows, they'll come back for the auditions next year. We all know it's not going to be less than 6m. The auditions grew and went out on a high last year with a peak of 12m - so the "sample audience" for the show, especially at that stage, is very large. We know there's a big talent show audience out there who haven't had a singing show on their telly since X Factor finished 4 and a half months ago. There are things going in its favour.

It'll certainly be an interesting rating. Probably one of the most eagerly awaited of the year. My guess is that the next morning the reaction will be quite muted - down a bit, not a lot, beats Takeaway (which holds up alright) and nothing hugely eventful. Although Samuel will be crowing about how it smashed its 6m target!

In terms of the cost per hour, I would venture a guess that it weighs slightly more in X Factor's favour than BGT (making BGT less expensive and XF moreso). Crew are a huge expense for these shows and X Factor retains them for considerably longer and also camps out at Fountain for 10 weeks rather than 9.

But I think those numbers do make The Voice seem pretty expensive. And it was - there was never any question that it was a big expense and a big gamble in the field of entertainment commissioning. Those XF/BGT numbers are regarded as massive, based on them being established shows with ratings nobody ever expected to be seeing on Saturday nights. And within those numbers, because of all the success, there will be hefty license fees, Exec Producer fees and on screen talent costs. The Voice ended up with a huge budget in its very first year.

It depends on running times as well. We've seen BGT do 90 minute openers quite often. And then you've got The Voice maybe sticking with 90 minute episodes beyond the premiere.

When do the schedules get finalised? Because the ratings for The Voice premiere might help ITV make their decisions. I'd imagine they might want Vicious to be on before 10pm (and BGT to be off before 10pm too) but it depends on how The Voice is rating and how hopeful ITV are for Vicious.

The schedules are declared a week and a half in advance, so ITV can react to the premiere. I'm sure though SNT will finish the week before BGT - it's only a seven part run IIRC. Therefore I suspect The Cube will switch to 7.30pm and BGT run 8.30-10pm (if no overlap). If they will clash ITV will probably go for an 8pm start with BGT.

It is of course possible that the BBC are running 90 minute editions of The Voice for the first two weeks when it doesn't clash with BGT and will then shorten them once BGT returns in an effort to protect it's own ratings.

That's true, the £40m per year probably isn't evenly split (in terms of costs per hour) between X Factor and BGT. It's therefore probably safe to say that both fall within the region of £800-900k per hour including talent costs. Bearing in mind that they reached that deal in October 2010 when XF was having what still is (and always will be) its most successful run ever. So for The Voice to be as expensive as it was (and still is) in its first series is a big deal. If The Voice were to improve on last year's average of 8.5m (official ratings) and be more consistent across the run then the chances are that the show will become more expensive for the BBC next year. It really needs to do well to justify the amount spent on it.


If The Voice launches sub-7m and doesn't show any real signs of growth then I think ITV will attack it. If it launches above 7m and shows signs of potential growth then they'll steer clear. Last year the BGT launch was 80 minutes, with a mixture of 60 and 75 minute episodes for the remainder of the auditions. I can't see them wanting to air it at 8.30pm (and therefore end up with Vicious at 9.45pm for most episodes) so I think we're going to see some scheduling fun and games before everything is finalised. The Voice appears to be going with regular 90 minute episodes which could be a problem and I can see ITV trying (and quite possibly failing) to force The Voice to a pre-7pm start, although even if they manage to it'll only be by 10-15 minutes as they won't start Doctor Who before 6pm.