Britain's Got Talent has edged ahead of The Voice in the latest round of the Saturday night ratings war after being beaten by the BBC1 show for three weeks in a row. The ITV1 show, which began at 8.30pm just as The Voice finished - scored an average audience of 9.4m, with The Voice's first live show just a shade behind with 9.3m viewers. And the figures for BGT rose to 9.9m when taking into account viewers who tuned in to the show an hour later on ITV+1. "BGT is packed with thrills and spills, tears and laughter and we are delighted that it consistently continues to be such a firm favourite with viewers," an ITV spokeswoman said in reaction to the figures. It was the second week running that the two shows have not been screened at the same time, following several weeks in which The Voice consistently beat BGT in the ratings when their running times overlapped by 20 minutes. Last Saturday Britain's Got Talent was due to begin at 8.30 after The Voice ended - but lost out on viewers at the start of the show after the latter overran by three minutes. ITV subsequently accused the BBC of deliberately causing the show to overrun - but the corporation hit back saying that the show had originally been intended to run longer and had been cut to avoid an overlap with BGT. Next weekend sees a double bill of both shows, with the second live edition of The Voice and results show on Saturday and Sunday, and the end of the Britain's Got Talent auditions on Saturday followed by the first semi-final on Sunday night.
