Yahoo News Britain's Got Talent ITV viewers 'short changed' by new series as complaints flood in
Britain's Got Talent fans were left feeling 'short changed' this weekend, as the show returned to screens, only for its episodes to be blighted by 'too many' adverts, meaning the amount of time devoted to actual auditions was far less than expected.
It was back in 2007 that BGT made its debut on ITV, with its first series shooting mobile phone salesman Paul Potts to fame, after he blew everyone away with his superb operatic vocals. Paul's win some 17 years ago paved the way for many more champions to follow in his footsteps, including George Sampson, Diversity, Collabro and last year's rather unexpected winner, Viggo Venn.
Auditions for the new series of Britain's Got Talent took place earlier in the year and, on Saturday and Sunday, viewers got their first look at the 2024 hopefuls in action, as the long-running programme took over the primetime slot on ITV two evenings in a row. And, while channel bosses are celebrating, after a peak audience of 5.8 million tuned in, there were plenty of those who took issue with the amount of ad breaks in the episodes.
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There was little over 10 minutes on the clock on Sunday's show when, after just one auditionee had performed, BGT cut to a break, with the rest of the 80 minute broadcast taking a similar pattern. Urging ITV to cut the amount of ads to allow for more auditions to be screened, one annoyed fan took to X to blast: "They waste so much time on #BGT nearly 10 mins on 1 act then it's time for the first of many adverts"
A few irate viewers declared the show should be made to change its name to 'Britain's Got Adverts' as another, contacted broadcasting regulator Ofcom to write: "@Ofcom why are you allowing a 90 minute program to be 70 minutes of adverts and 10 mins of the actual broadcast, BGT is just one long commercial."
