Britain’s Got Talent rakes in just 7.1 million viewers on average but gains 4 billion total views on social accounts over the past 12 months
Britain’s Got Talent has averaged 7.1 million viewers during its current run, including repeat, ahead of the season 17 finale this Sunday.
According to ITV, the show – with Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and Bruno Tonioli as the current judges – is the biggest entertainment series of the year so far across all channels.
But the talent show has still seen a marked decline in popularity over the years, with current viewing figures a far cry from its peak of 13 million in 2009.
The current series got off to a promising start last month, with overnight figures showing the launch episode attracting an average of 5 million viewers, peaking at 5.8 million.
The ratings made it ITV’s biggest overnight audience of the year since the FA Cup quarter-final the month before, which attracted 5.5 million viewers.
Britain’s Got Talent has averaged 7.1 million viewers during the current series, including repeat, ahead of the season 17 finale this Sunday (pictured by Simon Cowell)
According to ITV, the show – with Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and Bruno Tonioli as the current judges – is the biggest entertainment series of the year so far across all channels.
But the talent show’s popularity has still seen a marked decline over the years, with current viewing figures still a far cry from the 2009 peak of 13 million (Piers Morgan, Kelly Brook, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell pictured in 2009 ).
But despite the channel attracting many viewers, viewing figures were still lower than at last year’s launch.
The 2023 opener peaked at 6.2 million viewers, which ITV said was the highest rating program of the year.
It reflects a steady decline in viewership for the show after the 2022 series premiere peaked at 7.2 million TV viewers following a two-year hiatus due to Covid.
However, the show’s online reach is much greater, with a total of 24.1 billion views of clips and a total of 4 billion views in the last twelve months.
BGT’s YouTube channel has 20 million subscribers, with the most viewed clip being Calum Scott’s 2015 audition with a version of Dancing On My Own, which has been viewed 390 million times.
To date, BGT’s latest series has been viewed 660 million times across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.
And Sydnie Christmas’s audition, which featured in last month’s launch episode, has been viewed 54 million times in six weeks.
In contrast, their BBC rival’s YouTube channel, Strictly Come Dancing, has 772,000 subscribers, with the most viewed video being a performance by Cotton Eye Joe’s professional dancers, which has been viewed nine million times.
The current series got off to a promising start last month, with figures showing the launch episode attracted an average of 5 million viewers, peaking at 5.8 million (Alesha Dixon pictured)
However, the show’s online reach is much greater, with a total of 24.1 billion views of clips, and a total of 4 billion views in the last twelve months.
BGT’s YouTube channel has 20 million subscribers, with the most viewed clip being Calum Scott’s 2015 audition with a version of Dancing On My Own, which has been viewed 390 million times (pictured)
And Sydnie Christmas’s audition, which featured in last month’s launch episode, has been viewed 54 million times in six weeks (pictured)
It comes just days after it was reported that BGT are close to signing a huge £100million deal, which could see the ITV show spread over three months.
In a bid to catch up with Strictly, producers are reportedly hoping to fill the space left by Saturday Night Takeaway by airing a future series from February to May.
BGT has been broadcast for seven weeks for years, before the live semi-finals are spread over five nights in one week.
The show, produced by Thames, will reach the end of its five-year contract in 2025, and following the huge online success of clips from the show, it is expected to sign another three or five-year contract with ITV.
A source said The sun: ‘Stretching the BGT out over three months could allow it to be more present.
‘Online is where advertisers are pumping their money into now, but to get the clips they need the show. So the makers of BGT have the upper hand in concluding a new deal.’
A three-month BGT would feature six Saturdays of audition episodes, after six Saturdays of semi-finals, before a live final, with bosses even considering the addition of Sunday results, similar to The X Factor years earlier.
Currently, all of the show’s semi-finals and finals air in the same week, with this year’s series ending on June 2.
It comes just days after it was reported that BGT is close to signing a huge £100million deal, which could see the ITV show spread over three months (Amanda Holden pictured)