11/04/2012 16:57 | By Lorna Cooper, editor, MSN TV

Britain's Got Talent moved to avoid The Voice UK

As The Voice UK proves a bigger hit in the ratings than originally anticipated, ITV moves Britain's Got Talent out of the way.


The Britain's Got Talent judges (© ITV)

The Britain's Got Talent judges

When The Voice UK made its long-awaited debut, the BBC couldn't have imagined that, by episode three, it would emerge as the most watched show on Saturday night.

According to overnight ratings, the corporation's singing series narrowly beat Britain's Got Talent last Saturday. But that it beat such a proven audience favourite so soon into its run is astounding.

Maybe that's why, in a move widely interpreted as 'admitting defeat', ITV has acted; the commercial broadcaster will move Britain's Got Talent out of the path of The Voice UK on Saturday 21 April. There will be no head-to-head clash.

Throughout The Voice UK's run (three episodes so far), Britain's Got Talent has lost out whenever the shows overlapped; last Saturday, the difference over this 20-minute time period favoured The Voice UK by 3.7m viewers.

On the plus side for ITV1, Britain's Got Talent was watched by more people at its peak (11.3m viewers to The Voice UK's 10.7m). In addition, if timeshifted viewing for Saturday night is taken into account, the commercial broadcaster maintained its lead (albeit, slightly).

However, even Simon Cowell has acknowledged the huge hit The Voice UK has become. On social networking site Twitter, he tweeted this message to Danny Cohen, Controller of BBC One: "A slightly irritated congrats to Danny and the BBC. But you didn't have a dancing dog!"

According to early schedule exchanges, the 90-minute episode of The Voice UK would've seen the shows overlap by 30 minutes on 21 April.

Whichever way you paint it, the gap has narrowed significantly between the two programmes, suggesting that momentum appears to be with the BBC show.

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