The baftas are the biggest joke awards going. Some posh toffs on a panel deciding what qualifies as great television. No thanks. Viewer voted awards are at least fair.

The point is that the winners single rather like the show itself shows signs of promise initially before falling off a cliff edge. The Voice and it's winner have been forgotten already. It's entertaining yes but it's not unmissable event TV and never will be. It's just not all that great. The show would be dead if the BBC hadn't moved it to Q1 where it faces no competition whatsoever.

And what are these great production values you speak of? I've always thought it looks cheap compared to the glitzy ITV talent shows. BGT's production was as good as it gets tonight.

Are they? Personally I find it a bit shit that the NTA's and BRIT Awards increasingly award gongs based on who has the biggest social media personalities, rather than the actual merits of the content in question, but whatever floats your boat like

It's purpose is to entertain and as it had Ant and Dec's arses on a plate every Saturday night I guess that justified it for the BBC.

Yes and at the same time ITV are going to be the ones benefiting from the profits of those ratings. Well done BBC. Great job.

An expensive way too be part of the number one Saturday show but good for them.

I'm sure everyone paying the licence fee is delighted with how the BBC are spending their money .

Probably actually airing when nominations are taking place helps that I would have thought- Way after XF and before the BGT hype- But for me anyway, I actually slightly prefer The Voice's production style, no way is it as high as BGT or XF or even Strictly but the slightly stripped back approach and live band suits the show imo and gives it a different feel

Philip Glenister (Ashes to Ashes) is being lined up by the BBC to replace Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear according to The Sun

Atlantis was actually good last night. But to little too late.

Do i hear an echo in the room? (See post at 22:44 last night)

Thought I'd repost this.

Britain's Got Talent Series Launches
2007 - 4.90m (22.9%)
2008 - 8.82m (37.0%)
2009 - 10.52m (45.1%)
2010 - 10.63m (44.0%)
2011 - 10.44m (42.8%), exc. +1 - 9.94m (40.6%)
2012 - 10.00m (41.7%), exc. +1 - 9.43m (39.2%)
2013 - 10.61m (40.4%), exc. +1 - 9.35m (36.9%)
2014 - 11.07m (47.4%), exc. +1 - 10.54m (45.0%)

Was a good show last night, really can't call the ratings. Could do anything between 9-10.5 million, or it might be sub 9m who knows?

Ninja Warriors was fantastic, that's exactly what ITV needs. Didn't think I would enjoy it but it was such good fun.

Can't see BGT getting more than 8 million really.

Really unsure about BGT...the evidence suggests between 9.5-11.0 but every man and his dog has struggled the past 12 months that 7.5-9.0 wouldn't be a surprise - a still a week winner.

Jenny Cummins ‏@jscummins 11s11 seconds ago
Britain's Got Talent is back, with an audience peak of 11.3m/49% share, averaging 10.1m/46%. ITV's highest rating programme of the year #BGT

So without +1 it would be in line with the 2012 and 2013 launches. Pretty good considering how low ratings are these days.

That'll do nicely. Well done BGT.

Probably he most misguided comment I've ever read on this thread.

Hollyoaks winning the best soap at last year's BSA's anyone


Viewer voted awards are only indicative of how strong the cult fanaticism is for a particular programme- same as twitter trending is not indicative of ratings popularity.

The soap awards have stepped in this year and won't allow multi voting via the methods HO fans used last year. The whole point of awards isn't "ratings popularity" either. Why shouldn't HO win best soap? Are we seriously suggesting Corrie is the best soap with that comment?

It shows hows things have changed, when a 46% share gives us 10.1 and the same raw figure for 2012 was a lower share at 41.7%

Good news finally for ITV

Nice start for BGT. Pleased to see it above 10m. It was obviously lower than last year due to the lack of FA Cup lead-in, but that's still a good number. The 46% share is strong as that is the second highest ever for a launch. The series 3-7 launches (except series 6) were a few hundred thousand higher but had slightly lower shares, so fewer people were watching TV (perhaps weather related?) but BGT held up relatively better than TV as a whole.

Channel 4 Press ‏@C4Press 2m2 minutes ago
Channel 4's coverage of the 2015 #GrandNational peaked with a huge 8.8 million - 60 percent share of the TV audience

Previous Channel 4 Grand National 5-minute peaks:
2013 - 8.9m
2014 - 8.5m

It looks like the first four episodes of the new series of Game of Thrones have been leaked online. This could affect the ratings when they shown on Sky.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/12/gam...-episode-leak/

That share! Huge.

Fantastic rating and share for BGT.

It was a very strong opener IMO which bodes well for the rest of the series.

Ninja Warrior UK averaged 4m, peaking with 5.5m.

But I thought people don't watch because it's on Channel 4? Much like the myth people don't watch football on ITV it's nonsense. People go where the sport is.