The Voice gains on BGT in latest ratings

Britain's Got Talent once again triumphed over The Voice in the Saturday night ratings - but the latter narrowed the gap once again as its viewing figures rose.

According to overnight figures 9.5m tuned in to Britain's Got Talent's fourth auditions show, with a peak audience of 10.2m, and a further 603,000 watching an hour later on ITV+1.

Those figures represent a leap of 200,000 from the previous weekend's show, which has performed strongly in the ratings since its debut last month.

However The Voice continued to add viewers in its later time slot, with an average of 7.9m watching the final blind auditions show between 8.05 and 9.30pm.

The audience, meanwhile, peaked at 9.8m - just a fraction lower than the peak audience for Britain's Got Talent.

The show started off in the ratings at around the 6m mark, but has enjoyed a huge leap in viewing figures since it moved to later in the evening to avoid a clash with its ITV rival.

Next weekend will give The Voice the chance to win further viewers with a double bill of shows across the weekend as the battle rounds begin.

Meanwhile Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has hit out at the ongoing ratings battle between the two programmes.

Speaking to the Sunday Express the actress said: It’s not fair on the British public, I think, to put two shows up against each other because there’s room for everybody and it just dilutes entertainment,” she said this weekend.

They’re doing a good job on The Voice and obviously there’s going to be a war, but not between us personally. It’s just a silly, entertainment ratings thing really, isn’t it? It’s a bit of pantomime, it’s not real.”

She added that the BBC had done the right thing in moving The Voice to a different time, saying: “It’s a silly thing to try and put anything up against Britain’s Got Talent, to be honest.”