But who gave you a 6m target at the BBC, your colleagues? You just made it up.

Why not make the target 5million then we know for sure it will top that.

Shame the Voice dropped but that's still a good figure. FairPlay to SNT for taking the lead.

Exactly what all right minded people will think. While Samuels spinning of the ratings this morning has not been edifying (seriously Samuel who really cares whose a little in front) there have been quite a lot of silliness from the other side as well ( I mean TVUK is a flop or struggling - Seriously?)

Any Itv Morning Daytime and Jonathan Ross ratings for yesterday please?

I felt the show was on for too long. The rugby viewers had just sat through 2 hours of rugby and probably weren't going to sit through another two hour programme.

Now now, the Voices ratings weren't that bad!

I second that.

I'd say TVUK is more disappointing than anything else. Still a hit for the BBC though.

Is there even much of a crossover between Rugby and talent show audiences anyway?

I think it's great in a time of sparse ratings out of the usual fare we've got 2 shows on our hands that can produce solid stats

I quite liked it.

I think that both shows are rather like watching the same DVD over and over again. Whilst I enjoyed SNT I do think it's a bit banal and repetitive. Then it struck me. The reason dramas are not doing as well nowadays. The audience like familiarity, a singular style of entertainment. They don't seem to grasp a change of direction for a show or drama. But they'll watch the same, safe style of format until it gets boring. Well, I found SNT boring last night. Don't get me wrong, it's not a criticism of the show, but more a reflection on me. I just thought, "they.could have put last weeks edition on and I might not have noticed". I didn't watch the Voice last night. Last weeks went on for an eternity, and like myself, others probably decided SNT was the better option. I am not sure if I will bother with The Voice next week. I can't be bothered to care about the contestants. I am not sure if I will SNT either. Neither show is bad. It's just for me, they're become tedious.

Dramas aren't doing well? Most dramas are doing fairly good numbers but drama's themselves tend to fall into a typical plot layout.

Look at Death in Paradise, formulaic. New Tricks, CSI, the mammoth NCIS in the States and going back further the likes of Monk, Murder She Wrote etc.

I think that The Voice should ditch the battle rounds and go from the blind auditions straight to live shows.

Instead of the battle rounds, the following 4 weeks focus on one judge and their 12 acts which sing live - then the two acts with the highest votes go through. The audience then have a reason to keep watching and have more participation within the show.

Well I dont watch either TVUK or SNT but the from a purely ratings point of view they both deliver in spades. TVUK is not in the XF/SCD league but that was obvious after the first series. It is clearly BBCs biggest entertainment hit for a long time and bigger than anything that ITV have come up with in recent years as well. And even 6.7m last night for over 2 hours - when does BBC1 do that normally on a Saturday?

God, I knew it was a bad night for The Voice when I saw this. Given up trying to spin The Voice numbers and trying to deflect now!

The rugby will have rated lower than usual although it's worth mentioning that it will still be better than the YBF lead-in that Takeaway got.

It has all tailed off a bit for The Voice now. Seems like a long time ago that Samuel was (very) prematurely declaring it the #1 singing show. The Kylie effect has worn off, it's early March and it's doing ratings we've seen in May and June. Takeaway is building and The Voice is sliding, a comfortable head to head win this week regardless of quibbling over +1 or not. Series 4 is in the bag (and so is series 5 probably) but I think there might be some disappointment after those first few weeks that they're not in a stronger position now.

The Voice always drop after Blind Auditions. Strange format. And yet it's STILL doing better than other shows BBC1 have put in Winter generally speaking. Series 4 is probably likely.

It is a strange format. From the exciting audition rounds to the sudden immediacy of the battle rounds, it looks like two different shows, with the latter being the poorest.

The Voice will likely consolidate to around 8 million though, so not quite yet apt to write an obituary.

By highlighting formulaic dramas only goes to enhance my argument doesn't it?

Only downhill from here on in for The Voice then, and after tonight it'll be the lowest rated of the big talent formats on TV.

With that said though in theory it's a no brainer to recommission based on the average ratings - but with budgets as tight as they are can they really justify the cost of a show that loses viewers week after week after week when Pointless Celebrities and a lottery quiz show wouldn't disgrace themselves in the ratings and come in a heck of a lot cheaper. If BBC1 needs to ringfence money for drama here is where it should be taking a few million from, not BBC3.

Digital Spy TV Team ‏@digitalspytv 1m
Saturday Night Takeaway catches up but The Voice still tops ratings http://dspy.me/1k6hggq

To a degree but it shows you can do formulaic and still be clever and engaging. It doesn't have to be a turn off

Though sitting flicking through Takeaway last night I was utterly depressed by the sight of McBusted (why?) and Status Quo...

Not surprised Takeaway beat The Voice as McBusted was on there and #McBustedAntAndDec was already top UK trend at 6:30 and the funny thing is they only got asked Mid week.

Normally i watch The Voice UK live but this week i will watch Tonight ahead of DOI

EDIT- Well it was close. Why did ITV start Takeaway at 6:58 on twitter people saying they missed the start. I did myself too.

Channel 4 Press ‏@C4Press 9m
A superb 490k / 7.0% share watched the opening day's competition from the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympics live on C4 - peaking at 565k / 8.4%

Channel 4 Press ‏@C4Press 6m
Live Winter Paralympics from Sochi performed well for C4's target audiences of 1634s and ABC1s with shares of 10% and 9% respectively

So The Voice won?

Without the ITV spin of +1 and adding the controllers waist size into any calculation.